Salt Lake WingFEST started on a dreary day in early 2011 with two friends sitting inside an old trolley sharing a basket of Trolley Wing Company's signature 4Skin chicken wings. Together myself and Jimmy "Jimbo" Accettura decided there needed to be a day in Utah dedicated to the plethora of great wing options in the Beehive state.
The seed of Salt Lake WingFEST was planted.
Emboldened by the idea of bringing a wing festival to the people of Utah we began scheming the first ever wing festival. Convincing local wing places to participate (easy), finding a location (fairly easy), and exploring the idea of setting up a festival serve 600 people food (not easy) were just some of the interesting adventures that first year.
Our nails were nearly chewed to the bone on June 1st, 2011. There were only 46 people registered to attend. We had been planning for 500. Then June 2nd happened. Over 250 bought tickets in under 24 hours. Our love of wings and belief in WingFEST was reborn.
WingFEST 1.0 went great. We learned a lot while 512 Utahns enjoyed over 10,000 wings. The next day we immediately started planning the next years event. And the word got out.
We sold over 1,500 tickets to WingFEST 2.0 by May 15th our second year. We closed down an entire street in downtown Salt Lake City and beautiful blue skies greeted us as close to 2,000 people enjoyed over 30,000 wings! And we learned A LOT again.
Rome wasn't built in a day and neither was a stellar WingFEST. The day after our second event we went right back to the same drawing board. Devising a new way to keep the people full and happy. We decided we needed to move the event to a park so that everyone could enjoy sitting on the grass. We decided we needed to have Utah's best bands compliment Utah's best wings. We consulted with organizers of other cities Wing Festivals and got great advice on how to grow the event while making sure everyone got lots of wings and had a great time.
And now here we are. We're so psyched to unleash WingFEST 3.0 on Utah! We have 6 amazing bands (Marmalade, Changing Lanes Experience and Atheist to name a few), 5 amazing wing vendors (Wing Coop, Trolley Wing Company, 5 Monkeys, Wing Stop and Sugarhouse BBQ)! And we have a passionate event staff meticulously planning every detail of this wondrous day!
We love wings, you love wings. Come celebrate that love with us on June 14th this year!
