Free rides and a Nugget stage: What’s new at this weekend’s Farm-to-Fork Festival?
The Farm-to-Fork Festival has, in only six years, morphed into Sacramento’s largest celebration aside from the State Fair. Now it’s up to Visit Sacramento president/CEO Mike Testa and his team to keep finding subtle and fresh ways to draw more people to the weekend event.
The free entry and complimentary samples remain in place, as do pay-per-plate dishes at a range of food trucks. Beer, cider, wine and spirits produced within 150 miles of Sacramento are also available for purchase, just as they’ve been in the past.
Dining and drinking options have expanded, though, and a number of programming tweaks mean a podcast recording here, a new carnival ride there. Here are five changes to the Farm-to-Fork Festival headed into the 2018 showcase.
A bonus night
The festival will kick off Friday night this year instead of its usual Saturday start. It’s anticipated to be a soft lead-in to Saturday’s full event, with beverages from Clarksburg Wine Growers & Vitners Association, and locally-sourced food from Raley’s and Save Mart.
Friday night’s festivities will run from 4-9 p.m. from 3rd to 5th streets along Capitol Mall, while Saturday’s will span 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. all the way to 8th Street. About half of the 145 vendors booked for Saturday — the latter a 20-booth increase over 2017’s count — will be out Friday night as well.
The addition of an extra night makes it hard to know how many people will attend the festival, which peaked at around 60,000 last year, Testa said.
Big names and twangy tunes
Saturday afternoon’s headliner, Dawes, is fresh off the release of its latest album “Passwords” and has seen five songs peak in the top 65 of the Billboard 200 chart since 2011. The Los Angeles-based folk band will go on at 4:45 p.m. after indie group Magic Giant (3:05 p.m.), bluesy singer Sunny War (1:15 p.m.) and local artist Jessica Malone (11:30 a.m.).
Booking high-profile musical acts helps the festival draw visitors who wouldn’t come for the food and drinks alone, said Kari Miskit, Visit Sacramento’s vice president of communications. The Wallflowers played at the Farm-to-Fork Festival in 2016 before Visit Sacramento opted for less-heralded headliners Blind Pilot and The Lone Bellow last year.
It’s back to slightly bigger names this year, with the hope of booking a few extra hotel rooms. Several out-of-towners have told Visit Sacramento they’re coming for The Wood Brothers’ performance at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Testa added, giving non-foodies a reason to check out the region’s harvest.
“It’s going to be a nice swath of people who come in from Capitol Mall, get off work and come have a drink and hear some live music, and people who are coming in to experience a whole weekend in Sacramento,” Miskit said.
Child’s play
In the list of indie groups that read like a poor man’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass lineup, there’s one main outlier: the California Repercussions. Months after Testa agreed to let the Bay Area brass band play at the festival, he casually asked how many musicians they’d be bringing to the packed half-mile stretch along Capitol Mall.
About 80, the leader replied. So Testa tucked the group near the kid’s zone at the festival’s east end, as far away as possible from the live music stages but right next to the Ferris wheel that serves as an anchor.
“We’re just always looking for new ways to bring people down from one end to another and to keep the crowd flowing, and that’s a pretty high-impact visual on opposite end (of the music stages),” Miskit said.
Demonstration stages get new blood
Nugget Markets will take over a demonstration stage for the first time this year, with seminars on pasta making, pickling, arranging cheese plates and more Saturday. Danny Johnson of Taylor’s Market, the main force that drew the 2020 World Butchers’ Challenge to Sacramento, will cut up both a hog and lamb after sticking to one demonstration in years past.
Farm To Table Talk podcast will record a series of live episodes, including an interview with celebrity chef Jeremiah Tower, whose role in Sunday’s Tower Bridge Dinner had 1,000 people vying for the 80 available seats. Unless a talk or show-how is really popular, Testa said, there’s no point in recycling it for future use.
“In a lot of ways, you look at these types of events like amusement parks. You have to add new things to get people to come back year after year,” Testa said. “If it’s the same programming every year, (once) you’ve seen it why would you come back?”
Free transportation
A free bike valet will still be offered between 7th and 8th streets on Saturday and between 4th and 5th streets on Friday – parking will remain scant around Capitol Mall. For the first time, though, Regional Transit will offer free rides to and from the festival.
People can ride buses and light-rail lines for free with a flyer available on the event’s website. One flyer, which can be printed or scanned on a smartphone, is required per group.
Visit sacrt.com to see ride schedules and find out more.
This story was originally published September 27, 2018 at 12:00 AM.