To celebrate the humble burger, BurgerFest 2018 is taking place on January 22nd – 29th 2018 in venues across the country.  VFI members are invited to participate in the event, which was originally held in Cork but goes nationwide this year.

This innovative food festival that is designed to bring food lovers to venues across Ireland, will showcase the most creative and delicious burgers Ireland has to offer, as well as hosting burger-related events, tastings and demos to wash away the January blues.

The festival is the brainchild of the experienced and creative team behind Festival Crew, who between them have over 30 years experience creating and managing large scale innovative and successful food and drinks festivals over the past seven years, including Oktoberfest Beag, FEAST and Cork Food Festival, each attracting up to 28,000 visitors.

Over 300 venues throughout Ireland will be participating in the eight-day festival which culminates in a competition to find Ireland’s Best Burger, as well as the best burger in every county. Pubs, restaurants, hotels, cafés and fast food outlets across the 32 counties will be competing for their signature burger to win the prestigious title. The public will get the opportunity to vote for their favourite burger using the hashtag #IrishBurgerFest, as part of a strong national digital campaign that will accompany the festival.

Ernest Cantillon, Co-Founder of Festival Crew, VFI member and owner of Cork’s Electric and Sober Lane, said: “As a venue owner myself I know that, rather than drawing in crowds, festivals often take people away from the pubs and restaurants. What we want to do is to bring the festival to the venues and drive footfall for them, as well as putting on a great event for the public. Our business model is low cost and low risk, and has proved to be hugely successful. We already have some amazing venues on board for the Burger Festival and we are looking forward to working with many more across the country.”

Participation is only €95 per venue, and each venue can decide how they want to celebrate the glorious burger – by organising pop-up events, Man versus Food challenges, food demonstrations or creating their own unique daily burger specials to wow the public. The festival has a track record in driving footfall and sales during the traditionally quiet post-Christmas period, with one venue reporting burger sales up 300% last year.

For more information check out www.thefestivalcrew.com

And to sign your venue up for this exciting festival, or get in touch about partnership opportunities email [email protected]

A note from Festival Crew to VFI members

 We, at Festival Crew, have been running food and drink festivals for over seven years now, some attracting up to 30,000 visitors.

We have found these large scale festivals take away from city centre businesses, so we came up with the concept in 2016 of…

“We bring the festival to you”

As bar and restaurant operators ourselves, we know the pressures of the industry.

Our festivals are a great way to gain foot fall and up turnover on normally quiet times of the year, whilst also celebrating the fantastic food and drink our country has to offer.

As with our last, very successful Burger Festival, we ask venues to be creative and adventurous and feature anything burger related all week long, inside your own venue!

It allows you huge flexibility to be as creative as you want and you have our full support and advise to hand.

You can host tasting nights, hold competitions, feature burger battles throughout the week or keep it simple and just feature a burger special menu for the week.

It’s pretty exciting as we are launching across Ireland for the first time so entrants will be able to compete for “Ireland’s Best Burger”.

Last year’s burger sales increased massively for the week and we got some great hype and press coverage around Cork.

​The sign up cost is €95 (plus VAT) and this gets you:
● A​ ​full​ ​digital​ ​POS​ ​packs​ ​for​ ​your​ ​on-site​ ​advertising
● Direct​ ​links​ ​with​ ​our​ ​sponsors​ ​and​ ​partners​ ​in​ ​the​ ​food​ ​and​ ​drink​ ​sector
● Featured​ ​in​ ​all​ ​our​ ​marketing​ ​and​ ​promotional​ ​campaigns​ ​across​ ​the
country
● An​ ​opportunity​ ​to​ ​engage​ ​with​ ​a​ ​national​ ​audience
● Participation​ ​in​ ​a​ ​festival​ ​that​ ​has​ ​a​ ​track​ ​record​ ​in​ ​driving​ ​footfall​ ​and
sales​ ​at​ ​a​ ​traditionally​ ​quiet​ ​time​ ​of​ ​year​ ​-​ ​post​ ​Christmas

For more info or to sign up simply visit: www.festivalcrew.com