Dunn Tire Park, Buffalo, NY
Web: 2008 National Buffalo Wing Festival
Phone: 716.565.4141
See More Restaurant Reviews For:
Buffalo Chicken Wings
We don't know Drew Cerza personally, but we know what the man who calls himself the Wing King has accomplished. And as we left the 2008 National Buffalo Wing Festival - aka WingFest '08 - we almost wish we'd interrupted him for a handshake when he was standing a couple of feet away. We heard about this event years ago when we were living outside of Buffalo, and we were impressed by the very fact that someone was actually trying to bring something new and worthwhile to the city. Regardless of our impressions of this year's vendors, which we'll further detail in several separate parts of our WingFest '08 coverage, our hats are off to Mr. Cerza for helping Buffalo both recapture some of its national prominence and tout one of its many true assets.
According to the official web site, 78,000 people attended this event - up from 74,000 the year before - though you wouldn't have known it from the way things looked when we arrived. We can imagine that when the crowds got bigger, they must have done a better job of filling Dunn Tire Park, home of the Buffalo Bisons baseball team, but the crowd initially seemed light early on Saturday, so it was easy for us to move quickly from booth to booth checking out the nearly 30 vendors who were selling wings, wing-related products, and other snacks. Admission tickets were $5 each, and food tickets were $1 each, with a fixed booth price of 2 tickets for 3 wings. With 560,000 wings served and 78,000 attendees, the organizers took in at least $760,000 for tickets and wings alone - not bad for a two-day event, and great exposure for a bunch of restaurants we'd never heard of before. By the time we left, a huge crowd was waiting at the ticket tables, Food Network and the Travel Channel were walking around with cameras, and local media trucks were also on the scene. It was truly great to see a local event with its own Media Registration table.
We were really impressed by some of the event's little details. Whoever's doing the graphic designs for the festival has some serious talent - we love the logo, liked the T-shirts and other merchandise, and even bought a hat. Seeing the logo up on a huge inflatable arch as we walked in was a nice touch, and we were certainly impressed by the event's cleanliness and organization; it wasn't hard to find vendors, garbage cans, or food ticket booths, though signs for the bathrooms and wetnap stations wouldn't have hurt.
We didn't stick around for the wing eating contest, though we would have if it had been earlier in the day and not quite so blazingly hot outside - we were sweating before we even ate our first wing. Despite that, it was obvious that the organizers were trying to keep the energy level high with on-stage and on-Jumbotron events, which lacked a little for pizzazz but probably would have been more fun if we had attended with kids. Some adult-themed challenge booths, like "Eat Five Duff's Death Wings," would have been nice, if potentially too popular for their own good.
On the topic of Duff's, it bears mention that the event's vendor representation was the only weak spot in what we would otherwise consider to be an interesting event. Sure, the Anchor Bar had a booth - a double wide, at that - and a massive line by the time we left, but their wings aren't great these days, and the area's bigger names were nowhere to be found. Perhaps Duff's doesn't need the exposure or has some other behind-the-scenes reason for not attending, but the event's local traditional wing representation was decidedly disappointing, and really needs to be bulked up. Similarly, most of the restaurants from outside of Western New York weren't very impressive... unless all you've eaten are wings from outside of Western New York.
Ultimately, though we weren't totally blown away by WingFest '08, we'd chalk that up more to the quality of the vendors in attendance than anything else. And there were exceptions, especially Quaker Steak and Lube, which was just as impressive as we remembered from our last meal there roughly ten years ago. More on that in the final part of our four-part series on this event.
