How Tourism Benefits the Valdosta Community
Tourism is when people travel away from home for leisure, business or other purposes—but in Valdosta, it represents much more than that. Tourism serves as a powerful…
read moreMissed the inaugural Valdosta Bluesberry Festival? Here’s what you need to know
Ahhh, blueberries, brew sand blues– the perfect combination for a Spring festival. In 2022, several Valdosta leaders and community members came together with the idea to honor the area’s impressive blueberry crops, love for blues music and Georgia Beer Company’s award-winning Blueberry Field Party, and the inaugural Valdosta Bluesberry Festival came to life.
With blueberries being the number one fruit produced in Georgia, the Valdosta Bluesberry Festival surely honored the crop. With craft blueberry cocktails, special desserts, a Blueberry Bake Off, and of course the Bluesberry Olympics, there was no shortage of blueberries! In the first-ever Olympic games, festivalgoers participated in four events:
- The Bluesberry Jam: How many blueberries do you think you can fit in your mouth? It might be more than you thought! During this event, guests had cartons of fresh blueberries and they had to fit as many as they could into their mouth without swallowing any.
- The Bluesberry Toss: In three rounds with the participant standing at varying distances, they had to throw 5 blueberries into a cup. The person with the most landed in the cup across all three rounds was the winner.
- The Bluesberry Rush: Contestants had one minute to eat as many blueberries as they could.
- The Blueberry Pie Eating Contest: The messiest and most competitive event of the day was the pie eating contest. Participants had five minutes to finish an entire, fresh-baked blueberry pie. With blueberry pie flying across the table, the event was a hit and left blueberry stains for all to remember.
The Bluesberry Olympics were fun for those who participated and all who watched! The winner of each event walked away with a medal to commemorate their accomplishment and cartons of blueberries. On top of the exciting games, guests had the chance to participate in the kid’s zone, enjoy many local vendors and food trucks, explore iconic cars from the South Georgia Classic Car Club Car Show, and to top it all off, the night was complete with incredible live blues music. Bands included Dirty Bird and The Flu, Tom Bones Malone and Lou Marini, The Page Brothers, Blues Factor, The Tanglers and Deep Blue C. Guests sang and danced both nights away!
At the end of an epic night, four local businesses each hosted an after party to keep the celebration going. Each with their own theme, festival attendees enjoyed music, drinks and light bites at Southern Cellar, Downtown Social, Gud Coffee and Georgia Beer Co.
Missed out on the fun this year? The Valdosta Bluesberry Festival will be back next year – even bigger and better – mark your calendar for April 19-20, 2024!