Pigs and Peaches BBQ Festival
Pigs and Peaches, downtown Kennesaw’s annual BBQ festival, allows the community to come together and celebrate the blooming town. Music, food, performances and trinkets connect family and friends year after year. The weekend-long event brings in people from all over the city to taste local BBQ and enjoy a fun weekend.
August 23, 2022
The city of Kennesaw held its annual Pigs and Peaches BBQ festival Friday, August 19 and Saturday, August 20. Around 30,000 people attend the event each year to compete in the cookoff, buy from local vendors, watch music and dance performances and participate in family-inclusive, fun events.
The event started in Downtown Kennesaw in the year 2000 as an amateur cook-off and blues concert. This continued until 2007 when it expanded into a competitive BBQ event. In 2008, the event’s location transitioned to Adam’s park to encourage business stands and BBQ teams to participate in the festival.
“I love going to Pigs and Peaches each year because of how much fun I have. There’s so much to do and there’s so many different styles of food to try. The festival definitely allows people of all types to have some kind of fun,” sophomore Nicolas Fusaro said.
The event features a total of five amateur and professional cookoffs. The professional contest, sanctioned by Kansas City Barbeque Society (KCBS), includes numerous winners with a total prize of $10,000. The Backyard BBQ contest favors amateur chefs and includes a total prize of $1,550. The other contests consist of the “Anything Butt contest” and “Peach Dessert contest.”
Various events occur throughout the weekend including a cornhole tournament allowing all age ranges to participate. Vendors line the streets selling anything from handmade products to custom, unique art.
“Something I like about the Pigs and Peaches festival is watching people have fun. So many people go out and enjoy free time with their friends and family and that makes me happy to be able to see it. It makes performing for the festival even better as well,” sophomore Emily Ivers said.
The festival includes a kid-specific BBQ workshop for ages 11 through 15. Children also enjoy the multitude of bounce houses, games and performances while their guardians visit or participate in the BBQ contests.
Throughout the day, a plethora of bands and music artists perform on the main stage with line-ups of both original and cover songs. On the family stage, 20 performance groups entertain families and friends in the Kid Zone. A fireworks finale concluded the weekend with a bang of energy.
“People stopping by to watch us perform and show off pieces we’ve worked so hard on making me, and my team, feel good. We love making people happy and seeing people we don’t know out in the crowd with smiles on their faces. It’s what we perform for,” Ivers said.
