Murray, KY Freedom Fest 2010

This is our second appearance at Murray, KY’s Freedom Fest. We set up concessions two years ago and were successful. Just the three of us went: me, my husband, and my brother-in-law. Last year we didn’t go because it rained nonstop. I thought the three of us could handle it again, but Skyler insisted that we needed another employee. He said the employee would pay for himself because of how much more food we would be able to sell. I reluctantly agreed, even though it also meant taking an additional vehicle.

For the first time ever, we decided to rent a U-Haul to carry our equipment. If not, we would have had to borrow a truck. Two trucks and the car still would have been a tight fit for everything. The U-Haul truck was big enough for all of our stuff, but it was expensive. $20 per day, plus $0.69 per mile, and we had to return it with a full tank of gas. Without this investment, however, we would have been unable to attend the festival.

I was very worried when I saw the location they gave us. All the other vendors were stationed on the perimeter of the courthouse square with the music stage at a vertex of the square. We were located outside of the square behind the stage. I complained to the festival workers, but they would not move us. They insisted that they thought we would be fine, but I knew from past experience that an out-of-the-way location could be disastrous. Once again, we had everything we had into this festival, and we couldn’t afford to have slow business.

We got a late start (big surprise), and we set up a new tent which took longer, so we weren’t quite ready at 4:00 PM when the event started. People started coming to our tent right away, though, and before we knew it, we had a line of customers that never stopped. We kept 10 to 30 people in line the entire night. The four of us never stopped serving until 11:30 PM. We sold lots of lemon shake-ups, sweet tea, pulled pork sandwhiches, pork chop sandwhiches, brats, porkburgers, babyback ribs, and bbq nachos.

The next day was no different. Customers were ready to buy food and drinks before 8:00 AM. By 2:00 PM, we sold out of everything we brought . . . 2 cases of pork, 1 case of ribs, 100 porkchops, 50 brats, 25 pork burgers, 1 ½ cases of lemons, and 6 cans of nacho cheese.

The festival was a big success. We came back with no food and lots of cash – just the way we like it. We were very tired, though. It was a lot of hard work, but well worth it.

On the hunt for our next festival. . . . .