Photo by Biswarup Ganguly via Wikimiedia Commons.

Popular event rebrands as National Fried Chicken Festival for second year

Last year’s Fried Chicken Festival proved that, in some ways, it’s possible for an event to be too successful. The free festival brought a number of food vendors and musical performers to New Orleans’ Lafayette Square for one day, but it also brought a lot more people than the park could reasonably accommodate—around 40,000 by some estimates. That led to long lines and huge crowds that left many attendees unhappy.

Fortunately, it looks the event’s organizers are going to great lengths to make sure things go more smoothly the next time around. For starters, they’ve expanded to the festival to two days and moved it to a new location. Organizers are now planning for 100,000 people to attend the gathering when it takes over Woldenberg Park on September 23 and 24.

The Spears Group, which puts on the event, has also decided that a bigger undertaking requires a bigger name. To reflect these ambitions, the Fried Chicken Festival has now been rebranded as the National Fried Chicken Festival. And on National Fried Chicken Day, no less (yes, that’s a thing and it’s today).

The name change is more than just a superficial branding effort as well. According to the New Orleans Advocate, vendors from 10 states have signed up to participate and the festival has brought on a few national sponsors such as AT&T and Best Buy.

There’s more in the way of programming too, including a new cooking demo stage that will be headlined by chef Jeff Henderson of “Flip My Food” fame. Of course, old programming like live music and the fried chicken competitions will return (Original Fiorella’s won Best Fried Chicken last year, with Jazz City Cafe winning Best Use of Fried Chicken in a Dish).

“Everyone loves fried chicken, that was the idea from the start,” festival founder Cleveland Spears, head of the the Spears Group, told the New Orleans Advocate. “Things that exude authenticity do very well, and nothing is more authentic than fried chicken.”