I said we had lots of meat – and that turned into a meat fest, which … turned into a sausage fest and that was the birth of the whole thing.”įestival organizer Jennifer Bacani McKenney says feedback about the event has been all positive. “We talked about how there were a lot of farmers and livestock, pigs and things like that. He started asking, ‘Do you have any of those fun festivals like a lot of small towns? Do you have a garlic festival?’ And so, I’m like, ‘Well, we don’t have a lot of festivals, but we do have a homecoming but nothing that’s really unique. “I had a very talkative person … and at some point, I just had to concede and said I’d talk about Fredonia. “So, I was on my way back (from Las Vegas) and just like any good trip to Vegas, I was hoping that no one would sit by me, or that whoever sat by me wouldn’t want to talk.” “Every good story starts, of course, with a trip to Las Vegas,” says Jennifer Bacani McKenney, the instigator of the festival and a family physician at the Fredonia Regional Hospital. The inspiration for the festival came from a conversation two airline passengers had in 2015. Unlike many time-honored festivals in other Kansas towns, Sausage Fest started a relatively short time ago. There’s also the Wiener Weway, where participants scarf down a hot dog, drink a beverage and run with a Kielbasa baton in a relay around the town square.

Join a scavenger search known as the Quest for the Gilded Banger. It’s the kind of event where you can sign up for the 5K Wiener Walk.

It celebrates community but with a twist – double-entendres on male genitalia. A truly family-friendly festival, Sausage Fest takes place in the town square on the last Saturday night in August. Wilson, Dodge City’s Boot Hill and Harper all have testicle festivals, a showcase for deep-fried Rocky Mountain oysters.īut perhaps no festival in Kansas walks the line between bawdiness and boosterism quite like Fredonia’s Sausage Fest. WaKeeney has a Buzzard Bash, celebrating turkey vultures. Lindsborg’s plethora of festivals includes Svensk Hyllningsfest, which celebrates its Swedish heritage, and Vaffeldagen, a festival of waffles. Participants rock around the clock for a week in rocking chairs, sometimes raising more than $25,000 for community projects. Dinsmoor’s historic Garden of Eden.Įlk Falls celebrates its outhouses each year with a festival on the Saturday before Thanksgiving.Ĭuba has the Rock-A-Thon. Because, you know, the town is home to S.P. One doesn’t need to look hard to find a zany festival in Kansas.

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Sausage fest 2021