There are food and beverage festivals in every major city – often many over the course of a year – many with good websites. There appears to be a festival somewhere in North America for nearly every raw or cooked ingredient imaginable (eg: the West Virginia Road-Kill Cookoff).
Festivals are great ways to build energy and networks around food as well as a local food culture and economy. They can be small or large, simple or complex – but are always enjoyable.
An Agricultural Urbanism project endeavours to:
- Provide a wide variety of festival-supportive spaces and facilities to enhance the probability of successful food festivals; and
- Involves leaders from the local food culture and economy in the design of a neighbourhood to ensure it will support existing or new festival initiatives.
More general information on food festivals and celebrations or important days related to food is below.
Resources
- How to host a food festival
- About.com – This About.com page outlines good information to consider in setting up a food festival. http://eventplanning.about.com/od/eventplanningbasics/a/planfestivals_2.htm
- E-Table – This site also covers basic info to consider in hosting a food festival. http://www.etable.in/blog/how-to-organize-a-food-festival/2318
- Local Wine Events.com – This site has information on many aspects and locations of wine, beer and spirit events across North America. http://www.localwineevents.com/
- Food Day – This site offers resources for supporting food day, October 24th every year – http://www.foodday.org/host_an_event
- Food and wine festivals in Canada – This page offers a portal to many food and wine festivals across Canada. http://www.traveltowellness.com/canada_food_wine_festivals
- Special Food Days and Holidays – This page on The Nibble site has a great list of special food days for every month of the year. http://www.thenibble.com/fun/more/facts/food-holidays.asp
- World Food Day – Information on international world food day.