Tag: west virginia
Wild & Wonderful BBQ From Martinsburg @TheJournal #WV
Pitmaster Andrew H. Ashworth is int he house from Martinsburg, WV grilling it up for fame and glory on behalf of Wild & Wonderful BBQ. Let’s see him smoke it up for fame and glory!
Ask Neal Audio Visual Sound Custom Electronic Systems
Special Thanks to Ask Neal who provides our audio/visual/sound, he is a GOLD SPONSOR! This year, he’s going to have the sound wireless piped around the fairgrounds. Woot woot.
If you are considering any type of Electronic needs for your business, Ask Neal is the guy to know. Specializing in:
Custom Electronic Systems
- Communications
- Safety
- Surveillance
- Energy Management
- Lighting Control
- Video
- Digital Content
- Conference
D E S I G N E D
I N S T A L L E D
M A I N T A I N E D
YOUR SMART BUSINESS SOLUTIONS:
Call Neal today!
TOLL FREE
888.275.6325 EXT 309
OFFICE 715 Mt Vista Trail Harpers Ferry, WV 25425
SHOP 655 McGarry Blvd Kearneysville, West Virginia 25430
Elvis Has Left the Building….
You really didn’t think we were going to have Elvis did you? Wait until we announce a sneak peak of our 
great musical line up, coming this week….
Eric Fargo Around the Panhandle Photographer Taking Photos at Hogging Up
Great news !
FargoFotos owner Eric Fargo who is the official photographer of Around the Panhandle Magazine will be onsite Saturday taking photos of our award ceremony. Some photos will be posted on our website, (if not all of them, the rest will be posted somewhere) and free for our competitors to share and use! We look forward to some high quality photos from a true professional!
Thanks Eric!
Welcome Sloppy Dogs Bar-B-Que Martinsburg, WV
Let’s extend a big HOGGING UP WELCOME to Sloppy Dogs Bar – B- Que out of Martsinburg, WV. Pitmaster Rob Slayden will be grilling it up righteous with Sam, Anna, and Kate Slayden and Jeff Barbour. This is our first West Virginia team and they are entered into the Best of the Panhandle Contest. Who will win the fame and glory ? Stay tuned to find out!
Ice OnSite thanks to Reddy Ice
Reddy Ice our pals out of Martinsburg, WVA will be delivering us some ice merchandisers at Hogging Up! Therefore, our competitors won’t have to go far to purchase ice. It will be available onsite to our competitors at our cost! We are working on getting the best rate for you! Woot woot thank you Reddy Ice for helping support our cause!
Welcome Rock Hill Creamery!
3MI Photography Martinsburg
Thanks you to 3MI Photography for being a Wee Lil Pig Sponsor! If you have weddings, graduations, birthday parties or special occasions and need a photographer, please find them at 3MIPhotography.com Specializing in Senior Portraits, Weddings, Family Portraits, Reunions, Action Photography, Graphic Design
Calv’ry Booking and Management Sponsors Hogging Up
Amazing the community support we are receiving. Thank you to Calv’ry Booking & Management (Libby Files and Aaron Kilmer) for helping sponsor our first ever Hogging Up Festival! We love you guys.
Find out more about Calv’ry Booking & Management , the official management company of Stoney Creek Bluegrass, WEBSITE |
Sponsor Update: Audio Visual Ask Neal
Ask Neal services the panhandle area for Audio Visual needs. He handles concerts, festivals, private events, charity events and special occasions. He handles logistics, lighting, video and sound to make your life easier. Thanks to Ask Neal for being part of this event! Use Ask Neal for your event, contact him today!
Hogging Up Special Announcement to Vendors and the Community of Winchester
We felt like we had to tell you this story, since our vendors are getting scared away. Change is forthcoming. Please be patient.
When we first chose the town of Winchester for our festival, (turning down offers in Hunterdon, NJ) we did so because Big Fat Daddy’s has a long standing association with the county fair and we own property in Gore. We think the town of Winchester is beautiful, it’s one of our favorite places on earth. The location is great, close to neighboring West Virginia and minutes outside of PA and MD. The Panhandle seemed like a perfect place for a 3 day music and bbq festival, bring new people and get the town involved. Winchester we feel is one of the most beautiful places on earth. The fair board is very supportive of this event, and our main goal is to raise money for Cancer Care as well as getting some local non profits involved.
Big Fat Daddy’s will be selling food and maybe festival t-shirts. We will be instituting cheap admission (where can you go for $5- $8 –where can you go and see a days worth of bands?) We’ve dropped over 5000 free passes to the public because we want them involved. We want them to come, be a part of something fun to do, and buy from our vendors and support the festival.
Big Fat Daddy’s is the major sponsor of the event. We’ve had no other key sponsors. Panhandle Magazine has helped spread the word for us and work with us on advertising costs. This means we have basically funded it in entirety from our own money into this project renting the fairgrounds, the bands, the sound man, tshirts, advertising, banners, signs, security, tents, tables, chairs, etc……..and pledged up to $5300 in prizes whether we obtain enough competitors or not! Quick math on this is more than a top of the line new car. But why?
Cancer hit our family hard. It took my mother. Because of that it took my stepfather of a broken heart only months later and after 33 years of marriage to my mother. Cancer took my grandmother. My grandfather. It’s killing our family dog. It’s a cause. Something to raise awareness. Something important to us. So is helping the community. You may not know us or what we do. We’re not some big time promoters coming into the town to make a quick buck. You can read more about Wayne here.
Every Mother’s Day we get our family together and help raise money for Bell Socialization services in York, PA. They provide housing for people in transit – women out of abusive relationships get shelter and a way to start over. The homeless can seek shelter and find jobs and learn skills to make it in society. We’ve had a relationship with them for almost two decades. We ran a scholarship for three years in our hometown of Baltimore, the Anna Stickel Memorial Scholarship, to raise awareness due to a 14 year old girl who got killed by a train as she walked the tracks (probably listening to her ipod) on the way to school one day. This can happen to any of our children. We’d never met her, or to this day her family, but felt a worthy cause to send a message. We do work each year for and with several non profits to help raise money for their causes.
With that said, for Hogging Up, we are doing it to raise money for Cancer Care. We are working with the KCBS and have asked a local Winchester non profit to handle the beer/ wine thereby they will reap 100% of the proceeds – putting the money back into the town of Winchester and asking them only to donate something to Cancer Care. We won’t see a dime of this money. The town sees it. We feel good in knowing we are doing something to give back to the community. We told the volunteer fire department they are welcome to set up a donation tent. We want to support a community which we love and appreciate our EMS services.
What we didn’t know when choosing this location is that he town had old codes or rules, or whatever you wish to call them in place that initially are working against us instead of with us. We have been very vocal in trying to work to come up with solutions for us and our festival, to encourage change and exceptions. We are hopeful that change is on the way.
We felt we had to comment on this as it’s scaring our vendors away and vendors, we ask VENDORS for your patience in the matter. For instance, right now as it stands, any vendor who wishes to come to our event is responsible for their own permits and fees. The town does not currently have a special event permit, so thereby their permit fee is outdated and listed as an Itinerant vendor fee listed at $500 per vendor. This will show online on their form and of course, if you call they will reiterate this fee as it stands today.
(Who can afford that?) Not the small mom and pop crafter that’s for sure. Now we’ve received a lot of calls from locals who sell at the County Fair and the Apple Blossom and are wondering why this is. We can only state those events don’t have that problem because they are “community events” of which are run by non profit boards and are exempt from most of these hassles.
In addition Wayne and I are currently looking at additional fees, and will not know if these additional fees will get resolved. For instance, Wayne sells food each year at the County Fair at the same fairground and does not pay a meals tax. Here at the same fairgrounds for the Hogging Up Cancer Care Event he would have to collect and pay meals tax which would force him to raise pricing on food. This is again the way in which their codes are written as of now. We don’t feel right in passing these fees onto the public so again, more losses. Some may call these codes defunct, others discrimination, we just find them another obstacle in our way.
So, to be blunt, we raised absolute hell about this but we must remember they are just “old codes” and “not aimed at us personally.” We are trying to get our event straightened out because, honestly, what other choice do we have? It is too late in the game to move the festival so we are trying to make the best of it. At this point we don’t care if they hit us with fees but we are trying to protect our vendors.
Our event has received recognition from the Governor of Virginia and we know we are doing good. We can sleep at night. Cancer has touched all of us in some way, or someone we know and we remember the cause at hand and trudge forward. We personally feel it just shouldn’t be this hard to try to raise money for a good cause, or have a fun event for the community….
We are happy to report that some promises of progress may be made and soon by the powers that be in working to get these types of issues cleared up. They are diligently working on rewriting this code for a special event permit fee (reportedly around $30) by Mid March which will apply to our vendors. Perhaps then our event be classified as a community event, as we have been told which may help alleviate some other issues. We have not gotten all the clarification on it yet.
We have had the fair board offer to co-sponsor us, and even the wonderful MABBQA, but we don’t see why we should have to do this and redo everything this late in the game.
We are asking that our vendors who have called the tax office or pulled the form to hang in there, because we are pushing for change. Do not call them until April.
Of course this leaves us two months after the change to obtain enough vendors. If you know of a vendor who is thinking about coming please have them call us so we can warn them first!
We are asking for support from the community. Please spread the word about this event, come out and support us or ask your work if they will help us in some way. Eat our food. Buy our t-shirts. Ask your son or daughter to volunteer for a day.
Get your employers to help. We are still in need of a large generator for the competitors. Ask your employers what they can do. Can they help send some promo items, some freebies for our judges, or cover the cost of some signs? Can they help sponsor in some way?
We still need volunteers. We can’t do it without you and we are not a fancy commission or a huge corporation. We aren’t some big time promoters trying to get rich. We are Cindy and Wayne with two people and a passion for a cause.
Sincerely,
Cindy and Wayne
Special thanks to our friends in West Virginia including book author Roger Engle and lovely wife Gula, Steve Harris from Circa Blue and our friends over at Pickin’ in the Panhandle for keeping us going on support.
Best of the Panhandle Award Announcement
We are very excited to announce a special award dubbed “Best of the Panhandle” which has been donated by Big Fat Daddy’s, and Bill Flannery, owner of Texas Brush.
This is a sponsor award and will be the best overall score out of all any team from Panhandle area. Panhandle teams are Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia teams.
Next year it is up to that state to defend it’s title.
Example : In other words, if a team from West Virginia wins best overall scores at the 2013 Hogging Up Festival, they have beat out Maryland and Virginia for 2013, and therefore this team representing West Virginia would be considered “Best of the Panhandle”. It would then be up to West Virginia in 2014 to defend their title against Maryland Virginia.
Who will this award go to? That remains to be seen.
Who do we want to win? Our hometown is Baltimore, Maryland. Our festival is in Winchester, Virginia and we have property in Gore, VA. Cindy’s family is from Morgantown, West Virginia. Therefore, it’s simple: it’s a darn tie and we’re routing for all of you.
Thanks, and Good luck!
P.S. Please stop by and LIKE Texas Brush on Facebook, Bill is donating some great brushes to the festival!
Cindy & Wayne
When he decides, we will then present a “Best of the Panhandle” special award
MARYLAND teams
VIRGINIA teams
WEST VIRGINIA teams
Top overall score out of these 3 states will be deemed the winner of the “Best of the Panhandle” award. This is a special sponsor award prize, and we can’t wait to see who wins it!
Gary Smallwood to Rock the Frederick County Fairgrounds in Winchester
Gary Smallwood has been added to the lineup for Sunday at the Hogging Up BBQ Festival! Gary’s wide variety of music will rock the house in June at the Frederick County Fairgounds. Stay tuned for more information and updates regarding our festival!
Free Passes Dropping in West Virginia to Winchester Virginia Festival @CircaBlueBand
Exciting News! Circa Blue, one of our FAVORITE bands will be dropping some free admission passes in and around their home town of West Virginia. These will be one day free admission passes that will make you want to come out and see the action! Now our festival is a three day event, so this is a great way to come and check out the action.
Nothing like a good “hide and seek” game huh? So just where can you get these? I bet if you check out their official CIRCA BLUE schedule and follow them around, they may just give you some. Maybe check your local grocery store, bathroom in your favorite restaurant and find out where they are hiding! Something tells me Steve Harris likes to eat BBQ, so maybe check your local BBQ places, too.
These should be somewhere in and around Martinsburg!
If you work in West Virginia, and your company or boss hasn’t gotten their hands on free passes, then you tell them they need to get in touch with us. A small sponsorship gets them free passes to give to their favorite employees—people like YOU!
And We Are Back With Updates!
We’ve not been ignoring you. We have been busy!
Electric Generator and Better Pricing
We had to get things straight and map out the electric situation at the fairgrounds — originally having only a few spaces for the big rigs we thought about this, it’s going to be summer, and HOTTER than a pig’s nose with a fever. Most everyone is gonna want to have 30 or 50 amps, right? Our prices originally were higher towards big RVers, because we really didn’t want to have to bring in a generator.
Thanks to Mike Lackey’s advice (shout out to Bluemont’s own BBQ guy!) we’ve redone our application for better pricing to accommodate you big riggers. We will now be out pounding the sand and beating down the doors of some local businesses to help us bring in a generator for you guys.
APPLICATIONS WILL BE UP BY THE END OF THIS WEEKEND.
Governors Office
We’ve gotten things straight with the Governor’s office and hope to have our paper in hand soon.
Judge Emails
And now we have figured out how many competitors we can accommodate we will be emailing the judges official updates, BY THIS WEEKEND. Judges, make sure you have BigFatDaddys@verizon.net on your safelist or if not, check your SPAM FOLDER! If I don’t hear back from you by mid next week, I’ll be calling you up!
Sound Proposals & Music Contracts
We are still negotiating with a sound person to work with our bands. We are interviewing everyone and want to go with the BEST who can accommodate such bands as Stoney Creek Bluegrass, Circa Blue, Dangerous Mood, Avey Music and Kirsten Sowers……..(and more). We also want to make sure it’s someone who can work with us each year.
To our lovely bands, thanks for your patience and suggestions.
Top Secret Local Charity & Backyard BBQ for Sunday
We have approached a local non profit to help us with this festival. Although we want to donate to nationwide cancer charity CancerCare, we ALSO want someone who is in the town of Winchester or Clear Brook to benefit from this too. Once we have this firmed up we will tell you who our partner is.
We’ve also decided on a local Backyard BBQ for Sunday, so applications for that will be posted THIS WEEKEND.
Special Thanks
Special thanks for those of you who have helped with the victims of Hurricane Sandy. We know a few barbecue guys reading this have been there. We are from Baltimore and are sickened by what this has done to our neighbors in NJ and NY, many of whom are homeless or still without power.
More soon! Off to have a very busy HoggingUp Barbecue weekend!
Thanks for your patience.
Thanks To Pickin’ in the Panhandle
We’ve been meaning to say thank you to our friends over at PIckin’ in the Panhandle for their help! In case you haven’t heard, they are pickin’ up a storm and cookin’ up a storm every September in West Virginia! They’ve been a great wealth of information!
Roger Engle : Book Author and KCBS Judge
How exciting it is to find out that one of your very own KCBS judges is a book author! Roger Engle, having published “Stories from a Small Town: Remembering My Childhood in Hedgesville, West Virginia” recently. Roger has been busy signing books on a panhandle book tour! We can’t wait for him to be judging some great BBQ! You can order his book BY CLICKING HERE.
Around the Panhandle Magazine Sponsoring Event
We are pleased to annonce that Hornby Publishing’s “Around the Panhandle” Magazine has come on as festival sponsor. Keeping the Panhandle area abreast of what to do, who to know, and where to go, this bi-monthly publication is full of useful information for anyone that lives in the Panhandle area. We are so pleased to have them on board and will have more news soon.
You can read excerpts online here at their website.
Like them on Facebook .
Follow them on Twitter
Musical Mayhem
What are we up to now? Lining up some bands for the Hogging Up event….stay tuned for more information
Hogging Up BBQ & Music Festival Virginia 