Organizers work toward encore of blowout birthday bash

Organizers work toward encore of blowout birthday bash

Organizers of the Roots ‘N Blues ‘N BBQ Festival predicted that about 35,000-40,000 people would attend Boone County National Bank’s 150th birthday party.

Instead, an estimated 60,000-70,000 people came during the second weekend of September to downtown Columbia, where 32 bands played at three different venues, vendors sold food and drinks, and cooks competed in a barbeque contest.

“It exceeded all of our expectations,” said Mary Wilkerson, a vice president in charge of marketing at BCNB.

Now, everyone is talking about turning the festival, which reportedly had a $500,000 budget, into an annual event. The City Council gave its endorsement at its last meeting by promising to provide $10,000 for an encore performance.

“We’re really going to work on how this can be pulled off next year,” said Terry Woodruff, whose firm, Woodruff Sweitzer, organized the festival. “We’re trying to align the resources. It’s going to take a lot of work. Trying to keep it free is really going to be a challenge.”

Wilkerson called it “a risky venture at best.” The bank footed the bill as a birthday gift to the community, but she said that as an annual event, “you couldn’t fund the festival at a loss.” A group of businesses would have to agree to sponsor the event.

“We’ll probably come up with something in the next month or so,” Wilkerson said. “We are all very hopeful it will happen.”