Twice The Festival Fun
Fort Harrod Beef Festival and Bikes, Blues and BBQ Join Forces
Kelsey Elliott handed out beef samples during the 2017 Kentucky Fort Harrod Beef Festival.
April Ellis
Herald Staff
aellis@harrodsburgherald.com
The Kentucky Fort Harrod Beef Festival and Bikes, Blues and BBQ are joining forces to offer more events for community members and tourists to enjoy.
The festival will have a slightly different name, Beef, Bikes and BBQ, and will move from the heat of June to Thursday through Saturday, Oct. 3-5.
The event will still be held at the Mercer County Fairgrounds.
“By combining forces we will be able to hold a bigger and better event and have more for the people than either could offer on their own,” said Mark Morris, owner of JVM Motorsports, which is the principal sponsor of the Bikes, Blues and BBQ event.
Linda McClanahan, chair of the Beef Festival committee, and Morris both hope the public will weigh in on what they would like to see from the combined festival.
An organizational meeting will be held Wednesday, Feb. 13, and the second Thursday of each month following that at the Mercer County Extension Office at 6 p.m.
McClanahan said they are willing to make changes to the grill off competition to draw in more grillers and with that, bigger crowds hopefully.
The combined festival will keep their signature events participants have come to expect.
“We will still have the team and youth grill competition, steak and egg breakfast, pageants and bicycle race, but we will be able to add more bands, the poker run and more vendors that are bike related,” said McClanahan.
Morris and McClanahan emphasize that this will be a fun weekend for the whole family, complete with children’s activities.
“We want more bands and more family activities so that once people get here, they will want to stay,” said Morris.
Both organizers are excited about what the combined event will mean for the community.
“A lot of what comes in is donated back out to the community. This will be a great weekend of food, fun and fellowship,” said Morris.
For more information, or to volunteer, contact McClanahan at 734-4378 or linda.mcclanahan@uky.edu and Morris at markmorris@jvmmotorsports.com.
To learn more, check out this week’s issue of the Harrodsburg Herald.
