Festival of Discovery Feature to Air Jan 17
December 17, 2009
By CHRIS TRAINOR
Index-Journal Senior Staff Writer
Greenwood, SC - Save the date: Jan. 17, 2010.
That’s the date the nation will be introduced to the South Carolina Festival of Discovery, via Food Network’s "Food Network Challenge” program.
Food Network crews were in Greenwood for July’s Festival of Discovery, following several barbecue competition teams and filming the festival for an episode of "Food Network Challenge,” which is hosted by Keegan Gerhard.
The world premiere of the episode - which is titled "The Great American BBQ Showdown” - will be at 8 p.m. Jan. 17. Encore presentations of the episode will air on Food Network at 3 a.m. Jan. 18 and 7 p.m. Jan. 20. |
Food Network host Keegan Gerhard films an episode of "Food Network Challenge” at July’s Festival of Discovery in Uptown Greenwood. (Staff file photo by T.M. James)
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According to information provided by Greenwood city manager Charlie Barrineau, Food Network is available to 88 million households in the U.S and five million Web site users through foodnetwork.com. Food Network programming can be seen internationally in Canada, Australia, Korea, Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines, Monaco, Andorra, Africa, France and the French-speaking territories in the Caribbean and Polynesia.
Barrineau said he was thrilled at the premiere announcement.
"This festival was an amazing team effort,” the city manager said. "We put blood, sweat and tears into this event. This is kind of a cool reward for the Greenwood community. I watch those (Food Network) shows, and you watch Memphis in May and some of those other world renowned barbecue festivals and for us to get that much TV time in Greenwood, South Carolina is an amazing thing.”
Mayor Welborn Adams said he thinks the Food Network presentation will bring tremendous publicity to Greenwood.
“The exposure you get from an event being broadcast across national television like that, you can’t buy that,” Adams said. “This free exposure for our city is priceless. We’re thrilled and we expect the festival to triple in attendance next year. That’s a wonderful problem to have.”
It is estimated that more than 20,000 people attended this year’s Festival of Discovery. City officials estimated the Festival impacted the local and regional economy by over $1,000,000, up from over $602,000 in 2008. Seven of Greenwood’s hotels reported 977 room nights booked as a result of the Festival of Discovery, up from 390 in 2008.
Officials said festival attendees and participants traveled to Greenwood from 164 different zip codes and 14 different states including Texas, New Jersey, Oklahoma and California.
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