How A Festival Blends Culture, Tourism, And Economic Impact

Big flavor meets big vision. We sat down with Marcus, founder and CEO of the Black Food Truck Festival, to unpack how a community-first idea became a 20,000-person destination weekend that’s now measured at $10.2 million in economic impact for Charleston. He traces the journey from a post-pandemic launch to a two-day experience that brings in 84% of attendees from outside the Tri-County area and 70% from out of state, turning Charleston into a must-visit hub for Black culinary culture and live music.

We go inside the blueprint: why the festival invests in live bands, day parties at multiple bars, and family-friendly spaces to create an immersive, all-day flow. Marcus explains the vendor mix—Gullah-Geechee staples, African cuisine, soul food riffs, hibachi mashups, empanadas, seafood, wings, desserts, and strong vegan options—and the reality of lines at scale. He’s transparent about the headwinds too: sponsorship dollars tighten as alcohol spending dips, venue costs climb, and production expenses grow. The response is smarter marketing: a YouTube strategy for long-form performance videos, storytelling that highlights vendor success, and a 20,000-strong email list that fuels merch, premium offers, and year-round engagement.

You’ll also hear how the team builds a better guest experience with a shaded VIP lounge, private restrooms, early entry, small bites, and an open bar—plus safety upgrades like expanded EMS, water partnerships, and a push for hydration stations. We discuss values-driven choices, including turning down misaligned sponsors to protect a welcoming space, and a forward path that includes expanding to markets like Charlotte while keeping Charleston the heart and home. Marcus’s educator streak shines as he outlines plans for youth basketball and nutrition programs and new on-ramps into culinary and hospitality careers.

Ready to taste, dance, and be part of a growing cultural force in Charleston? Grab your tickets at blackfoodtruckfestival.com, subscribe for more stories with the city’s builders and creators, and leave a review to help others discover the show.

https://www.blackfoodtruckfestival.com

South Carolina Research Authority (SCRA) is a public, nonprofit organization that fuels South Carolina’s innovation economy by supporting technology-based startups, academic research, and industry partnerships. Through funding, coaching, and its investment arm SC Launch, SCRA helps early-stage companies grow, commercialize ideas, and scale within the state’s key innovation sectors.

King & Columbus is a full-service marketing and advertising agency based in South Carolina that helps brands grow through a mix of creative storytelling and data-driven strategy. They offer everything from branding and content creation to media planning, digital advertising, and PR—focused on delivering measurable results across digital, social, and traditional channels. https://kingandcolumbus.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_06 0:00

Welcome to the Charleston Marketing Podcast. Brought to you by the Charleston AMA and broadcasting from our friends at Charleston Media Solutions Studios. Thanks to our awesome sponsors at CMS, we get to chat with the cool folks making waves in Charleston. From business and art to hospitality and tech. These movers and shakers choose to call the low country home. They live here, work here, and make a difference here. So what's their story? Let's find out together.

SPEAKER_04 0:28

What's up, everybody? Welcome to the Charleston Marketing Podcast, powered by the Charleston American Marketing Association. We're coming to you from the Charleston Media Solutions Studios. Massive thanks to them for supporting Kama and the show. We've got to give a shout-out to our latest sponsor, South Carolina Research Authority, for their annual sponsorship. Plus King and Columbus for jumping on the team for Q1. Thank you for your support. Always a shout-out to Jerry FeelsGood for the beats. Mike Compton here, president of AMA, and Roombo, RMBO.co, a strategy and content production shop. But really, I'm just pumped and grateful to be here with our co-host, ABC, I like to call her, Amanda Bunting Coman. Say hi, Amanda.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Hello, everybody. I'm Amanda Bunting Comen with Social ABCs. I am currently the Marcom VP chair co-chair with Rachel. Rachel's here too, behind the scenes today.

SPEAKER_04 1:29

Um and what other chairs are you were on so many chairs we can't count them all right now. All right, we're on just all the boards. And I appreciate

Welcome And Sponsor Shout-Outs

SPEAKER_04 1:37

your help in all of them. Yes. Yes. You did.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

I did, but I'm here. Yes, and I'm loving it.

SPEAKER_04 1:46

Thank you for this. And you also brought your friend Marcus. Can you talk about Marcus real quick? Introduce this guy.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Um I've been working with Marcus for a couple of years now. Um and he's uh 40 under 40 graduate, uh College of Charleston alumnus of the year. Um and he's uh the founder and CEO of the Black Food Truck Festival, which is in its fifth year coming this April. And he loves what he putting on these events, and he loves the music, the food, the and everything else, and his festival has had a huge economic impact on the Charleston community. And Marcus, welcome.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Thanks. Thank you for having me. All of those kind words from Miss ABC, and she's responsible for a lot of our success as well. Um being our go-to PR person, I don't think I get some of those awards without Amanda.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

So yeah, any award I apply for all my clients.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

I'm like, and I I I I appreciate and I appreciate you reminding me because I do forget to respond sometimes to the photos and the things that they need to push them forward. What did you win today? You saw something today. What was that? Well, I saw something. I can talk about it, but on February 2nd, um, we're top 10 by a national publication, uh best cultural festivals in the country, and we'll be releasing that February 2nd. Whoa, that's cool. Yeah, yeah. Major, major publication that it's gonna be a run for us that we'll be able to push um starting February 2nd.

SPEAKER_04 3:18

That's awesome. So what Memphis? Is that where you're from? Born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Yeah, what brought you here? Basketball. Okay. So I was born

Meet Marcus And His Accolades

SPEAKER_00 3:26

and raised in Memphis. I went to a prep school, did a postgraduate year up in New Hampshire. Um I didn't want to go anywhere cold for college. So ironically, I went somewhere cold for a year for prep school, and I ended up getting a couple schools that were recruiting me. Those coaches ended up coming to the College of Charleston. They both kept recruiting me and I signed on the dollar line. Nice as soon as I took my visit.

SPEAKER_04 3:47

What did you think?

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Palm trees. We don't have palm trees in Memphis. Palm trees, warm weather all the way around. It's the South. I'm a country boy. The South is I always want to live the rest of my life in the South.

SPEAKER_04 3:59

So what year was that?

SPEAKER_00 4:01

That was I graduated high school in 03 and then I did a year in prep school to 04. So I got here in 04.

SPEAKER_04 4:08

Nice. Never look back?

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Never look back. I've gone home for, you know, stretches at a time, back to Memphis. Never a full year, but maybe month at a time. Um, you know, life be life and so sometimes I go home and hang out with the family and check on the elders and spend time with them. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:26

So what what specifically do you think is keeps you here in Charleston? Like why did you love it? Other than the palm trees and the warmth?

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Community, food, familiarity. Um when I go back home to Memphis, the same home that I grew up in, my parents still live in. I think that plays a part in me wanting to go somewhere and be rooted. Sure. Um, it's nothing like having conversations with people who've been here 15, 20 years, and you can say, oh, well, that's where that used to be, and that's where that used to be. And to me, I've been all

Memphis Roots To Charleston Life

SPEAKER_00 4:55

over the country. Um, I've been outside the country, and I think we have some of the best food in the world.

SPEAKER_03 4:59

I agree.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Yeah, like I think we're very underrated when it comes to food. Yeah, we're very, very spoiled.

SPEAKER_04 5:05

We're also biased, Amanda. You're from here.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

I know, but I'm I feel the same way when I travel and eat other food. I'm like Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

It's like take me back on the peninsula and and and and we can see it, it reflects uh I think James Beard nominations came out today, and we had quite a few Charleston restaurants on it.

SPEAKER_04 5:20

So like eleven or twelve, I guess. No kidding.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

A good bit, a good bit.

SPEAKER_04 5:25

So and it's consistently like that too, isn't it? That's been going on for a minute.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Always, always. Um the food in Charleston is just amazing. Like I think the the community, the culture, the food, um being by the water is something about being by the water. There's somebody who grew up in a landlocked city. Um it's just something that's just beautiful about it.

SPEAKER_04 5:44

So you love food? And is that why you started the black food truck?

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Don't we all?

SPEAKER_04 5:50

I mean, yeah, but I mean you must love it a lot. I doing a festival about it.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

I I love it, but um I think I love community more. Okay. Uh I'm more into bringing everybody together and seeing it all come together and people get together. Um my team teases me because I put a lot of emphasis on the entertainment. I'm a uh a live music junkie, live band junkie, um, and I love the food as well. Just so seeing everybody out there at the park. Uh I don't know if you have you been yet. I haven't been yet. Seeing everybody at the park is is something special and seeing the whole community come together.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

It's at the Lats and Fairgrounds, so it's huge. There's tons of space and every it's two days.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

Two days, lots of real estate, lots of opportunity and for activations, a lot of food. If drinking is your thing, we have three or four bars. Um we have live music, um, we have stuff for the kids if they want to play. Like we we've got it all. We've got day parties on campus, so there's DJs at each one of the bars. So it's it's it's a thing.

SPEAKER_04 6:49

What's the dot com for our listeners to check it out real quick?

SPEAKER_00 6:51

Blackfoodtruckfestival.com. All right. And we've kept it with the SEO over the last five years. Okay. So if you just type it in on uh Google, you'll find us.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

Nice. And tickets are on sale.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Tickets are on sale now at www.blackfoodtruckfestival.com.

SPEAKER_04 7:06

Nice work. Love that. So um how many people uh come to the festival?

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Uh I say anywhere from 15,000 to 20,000. Come on. Yeah. Yeah. I think we talked

Charleston’s Food Scene And Culture

SPEAKER_00 7:18

about this before the show, how the industry wide is down a little bit. Um, so however many tickets we sell, we like to add an additional 40% when we talk about the people that come just because we don't account for kids under 10. They're free. Okay. Um so they don't need a ticket. Sure. So we add a conservative number of 40%, less than half, if left less than half of the 13 or 14,000 tickets we sold brought a child that would equal the total number of people that'll be at the park.

SPEAKER_04 7:43

I'd bring two. So there you go. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

And people come from they don't, they're not just Charleston people, they're not even close.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

All over the place. Yeah, we sell 84% of our tickets we sell are from outside of the Tri-County area.

SPEAKER_04 7:59

84%. Eighty four percent of those in the back. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

Imagine that economic impact on Charleston that has.

SPEAKER_04 8:06

Yeah.

unknown 8:07

Right.

SPEAKER_04 8:08

So that's math, right? Which is why that's math. Which is why that's an intersection.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

That's not my friend. That's why that's an intersection between, you know, cultural and tourism, you know.

SPEAKER_04 8:17

On Marcus's, and look him up, friend of mine connected with him on LinkedIn. He's the founder and CEO of the Black Food Truck Festival, producing high growth event activations at the intersection of culture, tourism, and economic impact.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

That's exactly what we do.

SPEAKER_04 8:33

You know Thomas Heath?

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Because he would love that.

SPEAKER_04 8:36

He's a LinkedIn guy. He he his episode just launched today. Today, Thursday? Yeah, today. Um, but anyways, that's a beautiful intro there.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

I mean, it's it's true. It's it speaks to everything that we do. Um we highlight, of course, we highlight black culture. Um and so being able to do that, and and out of that, we talked about 84% being from outside of the Tri-County area, 70% come from outside the state. Um, so you know, we're bringing in a lot of economic impact in the form of tourism dollars um to the Charleston area. And it it speaks volumes. And I have a theory about it. I I my theory is that South Carolina um

Why Build The Black Food Truck Festival

SPEAKER_00 9:13

for so long as the South in so many places is seen as through the through the lens of black culture, is like, do I really want to go to the South? And what reasons would I have to go to the South? And we've highlighted a reason that like Charleston is where you want to be. You should come here, you should visit, you should learn about the culture. This is our culture as much as it is American culture. And so come check it out. And so people have just come in droves to the festival.

SPEAKER_04 9:37

That's a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Well, what I I like about it is you can come for one day or you can come and make a whole weekend out of it. There's a an opening party, there's a closing party, there's, you know.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

This is why Amanda is the best. Like, because she's absolutely right. Like, it's not just the festival on Saturdays and Sundays. Um, we have an opening party. Last year we did it at the International African-American Museum on Friday night. Absolutely. She's incredible. She's incredible. Um, very smart. Smart as uh she's very sharp. She's super nice. Very nice, very humble. You would never think that she ran the museum the way she does. And so we had we have probably three or four hundred people show up on that Friday night. Yes. And then um Saturday and Sunday is the festival, and Saturday night we have an event as well. Okay. It's more laid back than Friday night. Friday night is kind of semi-formal. It's dress up, it's uh get all bedazzled and come out and have a good time. And at that event, um, we have a live band, we have um, we have a DJ. It's very fun to be able to, you know, kind of kill two birds with one stone because you get a lot of tourists that come in and want to see the museum. And so us having an event there that Friday night, they get to see the museum, they get to hear music. We have a local chef that caters food, and we have an open bar, and we have all of the things. And then Saturday night is more a little bit more laid back, it's more like an after party. And then you can come back out to the festival on Sunday.

SPEAKER_04 10:57

I can't wait. I have to go. You got tickets.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

You gotta use them. April twenty-fourth through the twenty sixth.

SPEAKER_04 11:02

April twenty fourth, twenty-sixth. Nice.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

April twenty fourth through the twenty-sixth. For those in back. And you want to get those tickets on blackfoodtruckfestival.com.

SPEAKER_04 11:10

Ah, heck yes.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Can I take it back?

SPEAKER_04 11:13

Please do, Amanda.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Can you Marcus tell us like from the beginning how the festival has grown? Because I know this Lats and Fairgrounds was not where it was first.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

No, it wasn't. Uh originally we in

Scale, Attendance, And Tourism Impact

SPEAKER_00 11:26

2021, I came up with the concept probably in 2018 and sat on it for a couple years trying to figure out how to make it work. Um, what's the best way to make it work and if it would work. And in 2021, we had an opportunity and we were over in Patriots Point. We were in the pavilion of the uh soccer stadium, and that weekend was incredible. It was in 2021, November, so it was kind of on the heels of the pandemic. Yeah. And so everybody was ready to be back outside. Now it's the term. I don't know what we were saying before outside, but everybody was outside in November 2021. They were so excited, and we just really exceeded expectations. I remember I gave away 500 tickets, um, just hoping that at least 500 people would come. And we sold about 3,000 tickets. And it ended up being 4 or 5,000 people over the weekend out of the pavilion. So you ran out of space. We ran out of space. Yeah, we only had I think eight food trucks, maybe 14 food vendors all together.

SPEAKER_04 12:23

And that was your first that was your first go at it. Did you know that you were um attracting a lot of tourists at that point?

SPEAKER_00 12:29

Or what was No, I was very surprised about that. Uh I was surprised. The tourism aspect uh was new for me. I had always done events, I had always hosted in some capacity, but I I didn't expect the tourism to be the way it was.

SPEAKER_04 12:42

What did you do before you bring that up? Where were you?

SPEAKER_00 12:44

Uh during that time I was a banker. Banker. I was a commercial banker, I was a relationship manager. Sure. I was the liaison between small businesses, I think up to 50 million in portfolio in the bank. Okay. Yeah. Nice. That's what I was doing.

SPEAKER_05 12:56

I always dreamt about being a banker.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

It sounds silly.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

You would be bored.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

But here's the thing there's so many opportunities in banking outside of just showing up to the branch. Yeah. And so that was the best part about learning about all of the opportunities to really grow in a career without needing all the certificates. Yeah, absolutely. And when you start to learn about money, it gets boring sometimes, but then it comes applicable. And so I really had a good time in that role. I met some great people, had some great connections that I still work with for the festival. So I loved it.

SPEAKER_04 13:34

You jumped into that after basketball then?

SPEAKER_00 13:36

No, after basketball, the last thing I wanted to do was work in a bank. I had a I had a business degree. Uh I had a degree in business and a minor in Spanish. And I wanted to be an entrepreneur. Yeah, I did. I studied abroad for about six weeks in Trujillo, Spain. And so uh I had my minor in Spanish, and my aunt tried to get me to work in a bank fresh out. Looking back on it, I would have uh done it. I just did not want to go to corporate America. I did not, I didn't want to do it. So I sold everything from I was teaching that's the only year I lived in Memphis is when I graduated um college. I was gonna try to play overseas. I didn't want to like go through the grind of playing overseas for a little money and waiting it out. And so I was teaching basketball. I was a substitute teacher, um, and then I sold cars and I sold uh I worked at the gap and sold clothes and I sold furniture. So I was a salesman. That's that's what I was doing, and I would teach basketball in the summertime and have basketball camps, and I would host events probably once a month or quarterly. So I've always done the events.

SPEAKER_04 14:36

That kind of got you the event book there, huh?

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Yeah, I've always had the event book. I always tell the story about how my parents were hosts uh growing up. Um when I grew up, my Sunday on Sundays that was my house. My house was the house where we had, you know, 11 or 12 people over at our house, and my mom cooked. And so every weekend I kind of was, you know, even now I go home, summer holidays, yeah. My dad is barbecuing, and it's 15 and 20 people at the house. And so it's funny how it all kind of comes back around and like just doing it on a larger scale now.

SPEAKER_04 15:04

No, no, yeah, exactly. And congrats that you've got to this point too. That's amazing. I know it's a it's a hard grind. Um you were telling us some of the uh some of the grinds you're working with um earlier, uh, specifically YouTube, but we'll get into the what do you think? Like, first of all, I want to know how many food trucks there are, um, what type of music is gonna be played here, and um yeah, like what kind of food? Great questions.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Um we always have a vegan food. The band or is that the food? Food. I guess it could be the name of the band. Is it a real band? Is it slutty vegan a real man? Uh it is now. Let's go. We would have heard about that. Sounds like you were listening to a band when you came up. No, no, no. Um Slutty Vegan is a

Weekend Experience And Satellite Events

SPEAKER_00 15:55

uh rural renowned um food chain, vegan food chain. Okay, um, based out of Atlanta. She's been here the last couple years. Actually, last year we had the Alabama franchise. Uh I want to say it was Alabama that we had their franchise there, and the year before last we had the Atlanta franchise. But when you talk about food, we have probably 55 to 60 food vendors. And I say that because we have uh some of them have tents and some of them have a lot of desserts. Um or you have what we consider in the snack on where they have boiled peanuts or um you know pretzels or popcorn or small fair food type um snacks. Um and then we actually have maybe 35 to 40 food trucks. And it's everything from um African cuisine, or we've had oakan out of Bluffton to your Gichi-Gullah cuisine. We have Kiani's out of Charleston comes every year. Um we have hibachi, or we have a soul food fusion hibachi. We have this year, we have empanadas coming. Uh, you know, we've had uh we've also had Greek food trucks and um and Mexican food trucks as well, but majority of them are black-owned food trucks. Umly, you know, we try to make them, we try to diversify them. Um, but a lot of them have fried shrimp seafood because of the location of where we are in the low country. A lot of them are seafood and wings, so we have plenty of those trucks. Um, but it's a little bit of everything. Um actually our trucks coming from Memphis this year, you know, funnel cakes and you name it, we got it out of the festival.

SPEAKER_04 17:24

It sounds like a really big festival.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

It is, it is. Saturday is our really busy day. Like um, that's the day that's just like if you want to be amongst everything, you go out there on Saturday. Um, but we have a you know, we're fortunate enough to work with the fairgrounds. We have that big loop, and we just put trucks all around the loop and we let people walk all the way around and check out the food trucks.

SPEAKER_04 17:45

So we were talking earlier about festivals and and throwing the events, and some of these events uh uh aren't happening, Amanda, right? You were talking about how there's a few of events that have cancelled because of sponsorship because they can raise enough funds. How hard is that?

SPEAKER_00 18:00

It's very hard. Um I started this business because I um I was laid off. We talked about banking, I was laid off from banking and I got a severance check. And so I was able to kind of parlay that severance check and be self-funded in the business. Sure. From then the the main thing I wanted to do is is grab a lot of data and then be able to turn that data around and pitch it to sponsors. Uh, but sponsorship dollars are drying out, drying up, uh, particularly in the alcohol world. Everybody talks about how the alcohol consumption, especially with Gen Z, is down. It is. That is the lowest percentage of drinkings ever. And with the rise of you know, THC drinks, uh, healthier studies about not drinking, and people want to be more health conscious about their bodies, people aren't drinking as much as they used to, which slows down a big portion of the those dollars that come to festivals like mine. And then you talk about music, you're asking me what my favorite music was and what kind of music would be at the festival. It's a lot of funk, it's a lot of soul, it's a lot of live music. So it's a lot of live instrumentation, and you have to pay for that. It's a lot of sound you gotta pay for. It's a lot of stage. It's a lot of coordination. And and that thing, the inner the entertainment portion is what makes the Black Food Truck Festival special. I mean, you can go to any food truck festival, go check out food trucks, and you know, you just you go after you check out food trucks, you just kind of leave. Right. Um, which is the thing about why we charge to get into our festival, people ask that, well, you know, I have to buy food from the food trucks, and it's like, yeah, but this is a different experience, which is why we get a lot of national attention. We have three day parties on site where each day party is an attent that has a DJ and a bar. Cool. Uh, and then you can go to the stage if the live music is your thing. We got live music all day. We've got live bands from Charleston, um, we have live bands from South Carolina, uh, upstate, you know, Florence, Greenville area. Then we've got them coming from Atlanta. Um, we just put on a show with a live band, a live orchestra, black orchestra from Atlanta over the past weekend that'll be coming back to the festival. Um so those things cost money. When you get into making sure that uh my thing is we either want to give uh equal or more value than what you pay for your ticket. And so we want to make sure we keep a quality experience

Origin Story And First-Year Lessons

SPEAKER_00 20:11

for the attendee. And so that costs money, and I assume a lot of these other festivals want to do the same, and they're not able to keep up with the with what's going on and and a drop and people attending festivals and having leisure funds. So it's a tough business, it's a grind.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Marcus, you uh mentioned the um performance that happened this past weekend. Talk about that.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

So we do a lot of other events. For me, um, I just love doing events. I love seeing people come together. And so we had an event over the weekend called The Battle of the Bands. It's usually a momentum builder. We haven't had it since 2023 because it costs a lot of money to put these shows on. Right. Um, but we had live bands from Charleston. We had two live bands from Charleston, and we had a live band from Atlanta, the orchestra I was talking about, the Renaissance Orchestra. So we had Star Queen and Tommy Brown from Charleston. Tommy did a Jodice tribute that was amazing, and we'll have it up on our YouTube channel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He had a Jodice tribute, and then uh the orchestra came through. I mean, big sound, like trombones, like I mean saxophonists, like I mean, you name it, keys, bass guitar. I mean, it they put on a show. And so that's the kind of stuff we'll be able to put on our um YouTube channel, and hopefully it's not any music on there that'll get us flagged. But that's like a momentum builder for us to make sure we're we're staying relevant and staying at the top of mind for the community to come out to the festival in April.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

So and that was at the music farm, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:34

I was at the music farm.

SPEAKER_04 21:35

I haven't been to the music farm yet. Is that bad? I know. Yeah, that is bad. How long have you been here? Since 2019. Come on. It's that young.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

I went when I was in college when I was younger. It's an iconic venue. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

It is. And it's so many things.

SPEAKER_04 21:50

That's what's great about this podcast. I learned about so many things, so many new things, and I gotta do it all. Um so you said YouTube. What's your YouTube handle?

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Black Food Truck Festival. So if you type in youtube.com. Backslash at Black Food Truck Festival.

SPEAKER_04 22:03

Go to the YouTube channel and check out all the video work there. He's put a lot of time and effort into this YouTube channel, and I kind of want to talk about that, and especially uh for our event uh planners out there and our content creators out there that work with event planners. This is really a bunch of notes that you need to write down here.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Yeah, why is it important to work on your YouTube channel and and make sure it's working properly and I I mean eventually it's a it's another um revenue stream.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Um eventually you want to get to a revenue stream, and right now, as is when I was monetized, you had to have four thousand watch hours and you also had to have a thousand followers. Um and if you're consistent, you'll hit that. Uh long form content is coming back, which helps with those four thousand watch hours. But for me, um, what we found was Coachella was was my muse when I started this.

SPEAKER_03 22:56

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

I didn't think that we would grow and get the recognition that we've gotten already at this point. I thought it would take us a little longer. But Coachella is my muse, as well as what we were doing when we were finding these bands, um, their creatives and their artists. They didn't have a lot of YouTube footage. And so what we decided to do after our first festival was say, hey, we'll record these bands and then we'll be able to put them on our YouTube channel, and then they'll be able to send that out when they want to get wedding gigs and any other gigs, and then we'll be able to send it out to sponsors and say, hey, this is what's happening. I think these festivals need to build communities, digital communities, okay. Um, and get more into storytelling. I think that's where the real bag is gonna come in at um for us. Well, I feel like, you know, we've reached five years. There's only so much uh reposting of food interviews or um attendee interviews that we can do, and we we want to start telling stories. Like we can tell the story of uh Chef B who's been coming to the Black Food Truck Festival for five years and how she went from the first two, three, two or three years to now she has a restaurant, she has a brick and mortar

Banking Background To Event Builder

SPEAKER_00 24:05

restaurant. Oh my gosh, and I agree. Those kind of stories are gonna want are what's going to uh keep a lot of these festivals relevant uh and build a marketing platform. Now you have um your email goes from we have about 20,000 on our email list. Good God, Marcus. Yeah, so we've been we've been working. And so you take that, yeah. So we take that and you try to go it take it to 50,000, and then you take that email list and then you start learning how to come up with a product to sell, maybe it'd be t-shirts or aprons or uh what have you, and really building your own ecosystem uh within within the festival. I think that's the that's the real way to do it. Um digitally, you know, building an audience that sponsors want to get in front of. That way they're not just getting in front of the festival for the weekend, they're thinking about all year, like how can we talk to the how how can we talk to your community and be involved with your community? And so that's the real that's the real the real play.

SPEAKER_04 25:00

I hear you. And that's our struggle with AMA is digging in and finding more like-minded people in your community, like to join our organization as members and you know, jump in like me. We've got a few.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

I think events are the way. I I think events.

SPEAKER_04 25:18

And what kind of events are we talking about?

SPEAKER_01 25:20

Like I would love to have you at an event, like on a panel, Amanda, like a black food truck, like the four chairs, like a four chairs panel about festivals, yes, and this have you part of that? Oh, we could totally we could do that.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

We could have Bray on every year. I do know Bray. Bray doesn't increase what Charleston wants to do. Yeah, I I think those are very important in allowing the people to feel seen and heard and speaking because um mentors and people like myself who have done it for five years, I look for a mentor who could help me with this when I first started. But it's it's a struggle trying to find those people. And if I can cut down the time of somebody else, uh, even though I was hard-hit making a lot of mistakes and losing a lot of money. Sometimes you just gotta fall on your face to be like you weren't a marketing major.

SPEAKER_04 26:01

You didn't have a marketing major for that. You went to business and Spanish.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

I have no, I have I still tell people I have no idea what I'm doing. But you're doing something right now, but I do know we have 20,000 email subscribers. And I know that when we go to a uh sponsor, I can say, hey, you know, 30% of people are opening our emails, and this is what they're clicking on. If we get closer to the festival, 45, 50% of them are opening. And so you can put something in and then if if if myself or somebody on my team wanted to branch out into their own business, I don't know, let's say they want to start selling insurance, you know, like we've got a community of 20,000 people on our email list, and we can start using our digital resources to be able to build digital real estate uh and really be able to make some money and tell those stories. I mean, two point I think we got 2.5,000 followers on YouTube. So people are watching those videos, yeah. Um, but I think more people will watch them if we were constantly telling stories. Um, like like why, like the story I'm telling you today about how the festival started. Like what what are your struggles? Um I was beating myself up because of in the last two years, it's like, oh man, we're really struggling. We have all of these people. Why aren't we being really, really profitable? And then you learn in the industry that most people, most festivals are struggling, and a lot of them are struggling so much that they have to take a year off. That's a big thing. That is a big thing.

SPEAKER_04 27:23

Um

Food Trucks, Cuisines, And Music

SPEAKER_04 27:24

have you thought of adding do you are you adding any uh non-alcoholic beers to your we have mocktails, but we haven't had any non-alcoholic beers.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

Um we've had mocktails, what's that? SIBO. Is it good? Oh yeah. I I haven't had a non-alcoholic beer yet. Brewed here. Really? It's local, yeah. Even saying brewed is just weird to me. It's just like you brewed a non-alcoholic beer. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:49

Yeah. Pretty sure.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

Similar process, I'd imagine, just minus the booze. It's I I have the same beef with vegans who eat slutty vegan. It's like if you're gonna eat unhealthy, you might as well just jump in the pool.

SPEAKER_02 28:03

Like, you know, those lines were long.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

Oh, it's funny. Love her. How was it?

SPEAKER_01 28:11

It was good. Well, you gotta say it's good.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

You're out PR, you better say it's good.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

I I I enjoyed it because I'm celiac, so I have to have gluten-free. And a lot of times vegan and gluten-free are go hand in hand. So I stood in that line for sure.

SPEAKER_00 28:24

That line was crazy. Why didn't you come early and get a like you would have easily gotten?

SPEAKER_04 28:28

Is that a thing? Two lines? Is that a is that a struggle? Like, I always look at festivals as well. Who's thinking about these lines? That's a pain point.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

That's a very pain. That's a that's a touchy point in every festival. Oh, it's a touchy subject. That is big, that is probably our biggest pain point is the line. Okay. Um you have to know that when you go into festivals, you're gonna stand in line. Yeah. Whether it's a festival or Disney World or Right.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

You can't predict what's gonna have a line and what's not. Yeah. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

And that's a part of it. That's that's why we put so that's why we have the day parties at the festival as well, too, because one, we want to generate revenue with people at the bar spending money, but two, you have stuff to do. So if you want to wait in line, or if all five of us went to the festival, we could all break up and go to different places, get food, and then we could all come back to watch the music or watch the kids playing, or maybe sit inside one of the day parties and have a good time. So, but the lines have I have not quite figured that out yet.

SPEAKER_04 29:31

Um why are you figuring that out?

SPEAKER_01 29:33

Isn't there somebody that's it it it gives you know FOMO?

SPEAKER_00 29:37

It does. I was part of it. I tell people that all the time. I think that people weirdly enjoy standing in lines. I think they do.

SPEAKER_03 29:46

I do talking about it. You get to meet people, you get to talk. Oddly enough, you know.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

Oddly enough, I think people enjoy, I think that they don't realize it, but they enjoy standing in those lines. I do, I really do. They get to stand there, they get to meet people, they get to see everybody walking through. Now, we don't want them standing in lines, please. Let's not misconstrue that. Yeah, but I think oddly enough, it brings a sense of just kind of walking through and like taking your time and enjoying everything.

SPEAKER_04 30:10

So what are you getting? Oh, I'm getting this, you know, a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

Yeah, well, you see everybody walking through, or you know, the anticipation of I wonder how good this is. But it would be fun to get to a place to where uh we figured out to pay an entry price and you get the trial of these food trucks, but I think that would be a huge disservice to the vendors. Oh, okay. Um, because they get an opportunity to make money. They would lose money. Yeah, they would they would lose money and they wouldn't come back. Right. So that's it's you know, everything we do is for everybody else involved. Like the attendees come first, um, but then we have to think about the vendors. We want them to come back and we want them to make money and have a good time. And have a good time. So if we set a price and just said, hey, we'll pay you, you know, such and such price, which is lower than what they had last year, why would they come to the Black Food True Festival? It wouldn't make sense. That's a good point. Yeah, that's a good point.

SPEAKER_01 30:56

I have a question. Yeah. Looking in the future, what is your typical like five, ten, fifteen, twenty? Um like do you want I know you and I have talked about this, you know, expanding into other markets. Um is there talk about that and then talk about um is there a

Sponsorship Headwinds And Rising Costs

SPEAKER_01 31:21

special guest or celebrity or food truck that you really want to have that hasn't been there yet? Um what are your what are your dreams goals?

SPEAKER_00 31:32

Personal or for the festival? Both. Both um right now, top of mind who I would like to work with is um Bun B has trail burgers out of Texas. I think I love when you talk about intersection, the word we use on our LinkedIn, I love the intersection of entertainment and people having a different skill set and entertainment, but also loving food and having spices and different foods and so on and so forth. Um, so he's at the top of mind, like currently. For me, I would like to build almost a division of festivals in Charleston to be able to put on other festivals besides just the Black Food Truck Festival. And I want to expand into other markets. Okay. Um I think that's been a fine line for me, whether having this because Charleston is always gonna be our number one, and keeping it a destination market, like Essence Festival, where every year during the 4th of July, you know that everybody's flocking to Essence Festival. It's like they're going to New Orleans. I would love to be that destination place for Charleston. Um, but I also see myself taking it on the road and expanding to maybe three or four other markets. We sell most of our tickets in Charlotte, so naturally that would be one of them. We have a lot of Charlotte listeners in this. Yeah, we we sell most of our tickets to Charlotte. They come down to the festival more than anybody else.

SPEAKER_04 32:50

I knew that when he asked you to be on there. Yeah, Charlotte. We love you, Charlotte.

SPEAKER_00 32:53

Keep listening. For me, I would love to have this as a destination market, but uh my personally, my long-term goal is to be. You talked about Michael Bennett, um the hotelier who just uh supported the the business school at the college. I would love to really be full-time in the hospitality. Okay. Um whether it's building lounges or event space, I I want to just kind of just I want to be in that space. I want to be in hospitality. I think I was built for it. I think I got a knack for it. I think a lot of the technicalities I want to be able to learn and study and figure out. And that's kind of what I want to do with the rest of my life in the next 15 or 20 years. And right now we're just building a Black Food Truck Festival up. Um people ask me if I would sell it all the time, and I'm like, there's absolutely a number I would sell it for. Um there's always a number. There's always a number. Um, there's a number I would sell it for. And I would sell it begrudgingly because it's my baby, but um, my idea of this, we talked about positive images of the black community. I would always want that to be the legacy for people to look back on what was happening at Charleston during this time and for us to be a part of that legacy. But long term, uh I'm looking more now, five years in, I've I've always looked at the the business as really curating the experience, and I don't ever want to lose that, but now it's getting more into how do we be profitable and how do we make money in uh hospitality and tourism. Did I answer your question? I don't know if I went on a turn too much.

SPEAKER_04 34:19

So um uh the College of Charleston said that you generated $10.2 million in impact. Absolutely. Economic impact. Yes. How does that make you feel?

SPEAKER_00 34:29

That's incredible, and especially coming from my alma mater, and especially coming from we had uh an amazing um third-party team when we first started, because my whole goal when I started this was to grab a lot of data, and so they would do our economic impact reports, and it's not their fault, but people would just look at their names and really be like, okay, well, who did this come from? Um, but then when we got the College of Charleston involved, it's like, oh, this is a study from a university, a a wor world-renowned university, and this actually means something. And so for that report to come out, um, I was I I I didn't think it was gonna be that much. I didn't think

Building A YouTube Channel And Stories

SPEAKER_00 35:07

I I had no idea. That's a big number. That's a really big number. Um, and we tried to keep it as conservative as possible possible, as close to the numbers and as close to realistic and true as possible, and that's that's an incredible number. Now, I think it was like 1.66 million in taxes coming into the area. Hello. Um so we you know, Black Food Truck Festival weekend is a big, big thing. Um it's just a matter of if you think about all the festivals that are shutting down for a year or taking a temporary pause, it's just a matter of figuring out that that backside piece of of really how do we make it profitable and worth it for everybody involved.

SPEAKER_04 35:43

Here's a here's a question. Um and it might be you don't have to answer it, but have you ever turned down money from a sponsor that wasn't the right fit?

SPEAKER_00 35:55

Absolutely, 100%.

SPEAKER_04 35:57

Okay. And we're talking about how events right now are kind of hurting, right? We're talking about events being hurting and that's it. I didn't know that money is.

SPEAKER_01 36:03

If it's not a fit, it's not gonna work out long term, and that affects the bottom line.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

Thank you for coming here, by the way. I'm glad we're a fit. I did. I did my first year in 2022. I won't get into the specifics because if I tell the story, people will figure out who it is. But I turned down money uh from somebody wanting to be a sponsor who had a lot going on that we didn't think was honorable, and so we had to turn it down because we didn't want that to be a reflection of the festival. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:31

So you have to stay close to that.

SPEAKER_00 36:32

And sometimes we turn down, you know, a lot of insurance agencies and different small businesses want to come out to the festival. Um we've turned down a lot of um political dollars wanting to be at the festival and give out pamphlets. And um I just I want it to be a safe space where people coming out and having fun. Yeah. You know, like we may have some insurance people out, but I didn't want it to turn out to where people were coming out and being bombarded with pamphlets and being sold. I mean, you can't even turn on Facebook videos without being sold something these days. So I did I didn't want that to be I want it to be a getaway spot. Now, now this year's gonna be different, and this is gonna be the only time I do this. Okay, because Jermaine Johnson is one of my best friends, right? And he's running for governor. Uh, and yes, I'm biased, and yes, he's my friend, and yes He was your teammate. He was actually my teammate. We came in the same year and we left the same year. Jermaine played at Winchington um in 04 prep school, and so we started playing each other when we were postgrads, and we both knew we were coming here, and we actually came to College of Charleston together. We were roommates together, we were roommates on the road together, we both red-shirted together, we have been in each other's lives oddly enough the last 21 years. We fought, we've argued, and all the things, and now my brother is running for governor. So he gets a pass.

SPEAKER_04 37:55

Oh, cool, okay.

SPEAKER_00 37:55

Yeah, he gets a pass. He he will be the Democratic nominee for governor.

SPEAKER_04 37:58

I thought that name sounded familiar. All right.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

Yeah, yeah. So he gets a pass. We'll definitely support him. Um, but other than that, we want it to be a safe space, man. We just want people to come out, get away from the world for a weekend, have a good time, eat good food, listen to good music, meet some new faces, and just really have fun.

SPEAKER_04 38:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:16

Amanda, what do you got?

SPEAKER_01 38:19

Um Do you still do basketball camps and help you know youth? Talk about that, you know, the other stuff that you do.

SPEAKER_04 38:29

Any charity work that happens?

SPEAKER_00 38:31

Um for me, I I will always teach basketball. I've never really I coached at Burke for a few years. I was uh an assistant coach at Burke. Um but I'm a teacher. I like to teach the game. Um that's been my thing. Like um I you know, people that know know I teach basketball. I haven't done any camps, but I do uh I do want to get on that side of teaching camps, uh having basketball camps. Um I teach I I had a young lady I've taught how to play basketball who just signed with Clemson. Her name is Diary Breddock. Um big shout out to Diary. I taught her how to play from just three years ago, four years ago. Now, she has a God-given uh genetic lottery pool that she hit, which is she's 6'7. Um, so that's a little different.

SPEAKER_02 39:18

Don't say it. Don't say it. Don't say it.

SPEAKER_00 39:21

He did it. I did it. We we know he had we know he has young kids. We already know. But um I do I do I want to get back in it. Um right now we're building a system with the Black Food Truck Festival, uh trying to build a system that can be replicated to where anybody can kind of take the helm and it just runs on its own, and then maybe we can do some basketball camps. We do have a nonprofit as well. Um wow, one of my biggest goals was to have basketball camps where we taught nutrition. So often growing up, and even now we go to basketball camps that for lunch they sell pizza and the snacks are cookies and candy and like and uh a lot of these kids, they don't even know where the starch or protein is. Hot dogs or what it does, that's all they eat. I mean, it's it's it's really bad. And to be in 2026, I think it's it's still crazy that you know we were serving kids like soul food when I was at the College of Charleston basketball camp. I love College of Charleston, but you know, it was fried chicken to an 11-year-old for lunch at a basketball camp is just it's insane. So we want to get in that aspect. And we also want to um start teaching hospitality and food and bev to the community in Charleston, um to the kids, like finding some kind of segue between um that community and uh starting their own food and bev business and and

Community Building And Digital Ecosystem

SPEAKER_00 40:38

being in hospitality. We talked about all of the different careers and jobs and and banking, but there's so many in hospitality as well. Um lawyers can be a part of it. Um you have your bankers, your accountants, they're all they all can be a part of hospitality um just as much as any other career field.

SPEAKER_04 40:54

So oh, for sure. Just even within the cooking ecosphere alone, there's so many jobs in there.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

Product development, you know, project uh management, so many different avenues.

SPEAKER_04 41:03

I know, right? They're doing a really good job. Uh the college, not the college, but the the CCSD, Charleston uh County uh school district is doing a great job um having a class for culinary. Yeah, I substitute teach too right now, currently, and I subbed the class in that. It was awesome. It was a real kitchen, they're doing they're cooking real food.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

I think when we find that I feel like home make is not even a thing anymore. That's what it was. Home make is not a thing. I took home make in middle school. Like we were in there like crocheting and making donuts. Yeah, it was it was it seemed like an easy A at the time, but they actually taught us life skills. They were teaching us how to cook. And home make was a fun class. And I think we forget that when we teach kids these life skills, uh how important it is. Like, we live in a time where obesity is running rampant, um, people wanting to be more health conscious and more. More processed. And I think a lot of times we're not looking at the fact that a lot of this is an educational thing uh as much as it is a discipline thing. People don't have the education, they don't even know where to start. Luckily, I played sports and I was taught a lot of this stuff. Um, but you know, some people who've never played a sport, how do they know what to do, what to eat, when to eat, how to eat, you know. Uh and so if we can teach them early and we can kind of get a hold on that, we can kind of really get the Black Food Truck Festival Foundation out of 501c3 and really get into programs helping with that.

SPEAKER_04 42:26

It'd be cool if I if I can get you connected with them and maybe do like a guest speaker at one of their classes or something like that. I would love to. I would love to.

SPEAKER_00 42:33

I'm very open to that. And so we're building those programs out, and I would love to merge basketball into the hospitality space um uh some kind of way, or just merging it all together and just really being a part of the community.

SPEAKER_04 42:44

So you got something going on there, Marcus. Good work. Um, yeah, I mean, you know, um uh Amanda. You covered everything here that I've I've kind of written down. Yeah, I'm looking at it too. One thing that I was talking about was um let's go like here. If you could change one thing about the city, the county when it comes to working in events and to help, you know, mobile vendors thrive, events thrive, what would it be that you would be able to change? You know, like is it the permitting? Is it the you know what was what was the thing that you uh struggled with?

SPEAKER_00 43:32

The permitting is tedious.

SPEAKER_04 43:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:35

There's a there's a big issue going on right now that they're trying to get a hold on with the liquor liability laws and the insurance laws. Uh huh. Um one thing that I would change about that is having somebody at the helm who's actually worked in hospitality and tourism. Oh, somebody making the laws. To be able to make in the laws, doing that. I haven't had it's been a tedious process that I've gotten that I've fumbled. Sometimes I had to go back and forth with the uh Department of Revenue, but I haven't had any serious problems. My biggest beefs have been with the rising venue costs. Okay. I think for me that has been a big, big issue.

SPEAKER_04 44:14

It's all around all across the board. Big issue. Big issue.

SPEAKER_00 44:18

And I'm talking prices doubling and tripling. Out of nowhere. Yeah. Yeah. Same building. Yeah. Same product. Um, same building. I think that has been a that's but that's been my biggest Achilles heel is uh working with so many venues and seeing a lot of them just double the price, you know, um just out of nowhere. And it's like it's not even a uh a stair climb up, it's like you know, one dollar to two dollars. Right. Like it's like and that that kind of puts us in the same position we talked about with those other festivals on how are we gonna be able to make it when a lot of others, you know, a lot of corporations aren't giving those sponsorship dollars like they used to.

SPEAKER_04 44:55

What would be your ideal sponsor?

SPEAKER_00 44:58

Boeing. Boeing. Boeing here. Boeing. Maybe they're listening. Yeah, hopefully they're listening. Boeing would be an ideal sponsor.

Industry Struggles And Festival Economics

SPEAKER_00 45:06

Um Boeing comments, I want the big boys here. Um but also um because of the entertainment aspect, um, Spotify, um, Red Bull music, Apple music, um, you know, Live Nation. A lot of those partners that can help us uh cut costs and we can give them value by being a part of the stage and really amplifying the music. Um Coca-Cola and Pepsi, um those big soft drink sponsors. Sure. Um water. A water sponsor would be um we worked with Wine and Food one year to be able to have water at our festival. Um they did we did we had a great partnership with them where they partnered with us and we were able to get some water and have uh out at the festival because um one thing that I didn't account for when I did a festival in the spring was people passing out.

SPEAKER_04 46:07

Oh my!

SPEAKER_01 46:08

Yeah, yeah, it can be it can be quite hot here.

SPEAKER_04 46:11

Were you just freaking out once when the first person passed out? Or did you know and find out and you're like I had all the emotions. I mean, if I'm being honest, I was freaking out.

SPEAKER_00 46:19

Yeah, I was freaking out, and then I was I'm not gonna say happy, but I was like, it wasn't because they were drinking. Oh, it was you think you automatically think it's drinking, but it's not drinking. People just they have heat exhaustion, dehydrated, they're dehydrated, they have health issues, and they just don't realize it. And I mean, like, I think we we I don't I don't know if we've had one who've just who's just passed out from drinking. It's usually just like like man, like somebody's just walking and it's it's it's 80, it can get 80 degrees in April, which means it's probably feeling like 85, 86.

SPEAKER_01 46:52

Well, even you know, 15,000, 20,000 people at a festival, something's bound up.

SPEAKER_00 46:56

Something's going to happen. Oh my god, something is going to happen. I I you know, I don't you can prepare for everything. There's something that's going to happen. And if you can kind of prepare your mind and your team to just be able to like, you know, the elders always tell

Lines, Logistics, And Guest Experience

SPEAKER_00 47:10

you that it, you know, life is 90% about how you respond to what happens. And the 10% is really what happens, like responding to what happens, making the best of it, and like making sure you take care of it. Because the first time it happened to me in 2022, a couple people passed out. And, you know, by the time it was the fourth or fifth person, it was like, don't call me, you know, call EMS. You know, yeah. Luckily, we have EMS, we have we're we're fully prepared for everything that happens, but that really caught me off guard. I didn't. So drink water when you come out to the Black Food Drug Festival. And having a water sponsor and being able to give out free water, that was a partnership. That's where I was going. I'm gonna go ahead and land that plane. Yes, please. Um, that partnership with wine and food where we were able to give out free water was Chef's Kids. That's nice. This is how sponsorships work. I asked you guys for sparkling water. I didn't drink sparkling water. We had that partnership with Wine and Food, and we were giving out uh I don't I don't want to drop brand names, but we had distilled water and we had sparkling water, and that's what turned me on to my love for sparkling water, and I've been drinking sparkling water since and it's actually the brand that um we were partners with. So that was that's how sponsorship works. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 48:19

Life changing.

SPEAKER_00 48:20

Yeah, I buy it at the grocery store. People drink water for you. Drink water, like it I mean, I just I would I never would have thought. I never so now we double up on EMS. We have EMS tents, we have you know, medics on staff just in case anything happens and a bunch of security.

SPEAKER_04 48:35

So how can uh how can we help?

SPEAKER_00 48:38

I think you're helping right now, like just being able just getting the word out, um, maybe getting tickets out, making sure people, you know, know when it is. Yeah. I think we're in that sweet spot where we have enough time, but it's also ninety-two or ninety-one days away. So we're in a sweet spot right now where people are planning. Um we sell the bulk of our tickets, the our tickets, the last two weeks, which is tough. Isn't that hard?

SPEAKER_01 49:04

This world is a last minute. That's tough. I don't think I used to think it was a Charleston problem, but I think it's it's oh, it's everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 49:10

I always think of Charleston. It's hard. That's that's that's the tough part about it. We probably sell 70% of our tickets within two weeks. So you imagine selling 13,000 tickets, and you know, you get to two weeks out and you've only sold three or four, and you're like wondering what's gonna happen. What platform are you using? Eventbrite. They've been some amazing partners. We uh actually have a contract with Eventbrite. Okay. Um we've tried to use other platforms and they were okay, but Eventbrite is just they're such the big dog right now that they came and made us an offer that we couldn't refuse. That's sweet.

SPEAKER_04 49:47

Or the uh early bird discounts.

SPEAKER_00 49:49

Well, for me, I we do early bird discounts, um, but it's hard when you're not gonna go above 25 or 30 bucks because it's not really making that much of a difference for people to pay them. I don't ever want to get too expensive because there is the aspect of people wanting to buy food. I don't want you to pay an arm a leg to get in, and then you gotta pay an arm or leg to buy food and you're a family of four. Like, I I I don't think that's not why I do it. I mean, I want to make money, but at the same time, I want people to come and be able to have a good time. Um $10.2 million.

SPEAKER_04 50:21

You mean you want to make money? You're doing it for somebody. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 50:24

You're right, you're right. And when I saw that number, I did think about that. It is, it is, it's it's going to everybody else, but eventually we're gonna have to raise the price. But the difference between an early bird of 15 and a day of of 25, people are like, nah, whatever. If I had to pay an extra $10, like, okay.

SPEAKER_01 50:40

Talk about the uh VIP experience you have. Ooh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you talk about the you know, general admission. So we do something special about VIP.

SPEAKER_00 50:49

So we uh we do have a VIP experience. In the VIP experience, you have your own shaded shaded area. Sure. So you have your own restroom, you have a private restroom, um, and we also have an open bar all day for our VIP guests. Okay. Uh, and then we have food, we have small bites until they run out. So on Saturday and Sunday, we'll have a local caterer or a local chef prepare food uh for the VIP. Uh you'll be able to go in there, sit down, eat, enjoy specialty cocktails, um, enjoy um the food that we have, as well as you'll be able to get in at 11 a.m. uh, which is an hour early um before the gates open. Oh, nice. And if you've been to the Black Food Truck Festival on Saturday, at 10.30, people are lining up to get into the festival. That line is probably anywhere from 700 to 1,000 deep uh at 12 o'clock of people trying to get into the festival. And the VIP, you can just walk right in. Okay. Uh right now, those tickets are on sale right now for $125.

SPEAKER_05 51:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 51:46

And you talk about affordable VIP experience for this weekend at the Black Food Truck Festival is $355 for the entire weekend. Um, that means you can go to the soiree where you have an open bar and you can drink at the museum. You can have VIP Saturday and Sunday at the festival, and you can have access to the Saturday night

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SPEAKER_00 52:03

party. The whole shebang. The whole shebang for $355. That's our early birth special, which is beyond affordable. Um people still don't buy tickets, they still wait till the last minute to buy. Um but that's the VIP experience, and we love it. And this year we'll actually have a we'll have a specialty cocktail, a festival cocktail.

SPEAKER_05 52:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 52:25

Oh, is that new?

SPEAKER_00 52:26

That's a new that's a new thing. We've had we've had uh specialty cocktails, but not a festival cocktail.

SPEAKER_03 52:31

Oh, that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 52:32

Yeah, I'm making it for you. Um we have a group called Day Drink, and we also have Tanika Reeves, who's our beverage consultant, like coming up with that uh specialty cocktail.

SPEAKER_04 52:42

I was waiting for you to say anybody in the cocktail bandits. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 52:46

I just said that, right? No, you don't have to be a good thing. Tanika Reeves, she's with the cocktail bandits. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's with the cocktail bandits. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:50

Um they've been on the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 52:52

They have not been on the podcast. So yeah, they Tanika Reeves is she's with the cocktail band. I went to school with Tanika and Johnny. Oh, okay. Same year, 04, all of us with Jermaine. We all went to school together. It's such a small one. And then 04, God, it was 22 years ago. That's crazy. But um, yeah, I I've I've started playing tennis two years ago.

SPEAKER_04 53:11

All right. I almost wore a tennis uh hoodie today. I started playing tennis.

SPEAKER_00 53:15

Yeah, I'm getting okay. I'm okay. I'm getting yeah, let's let's go. You're not like above like a four OR. No, no, no, no. Okay. Okay, we'll play that. But I um I was watching the US Open last year.

SPEAKER_04 53:28

You went. You went for the day, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:30

And I saw the honey deuce. I had two. Was it good?

SPEAKER_04 53:34

Hell yeah, it was good. Yeah, how much was the one I went?

unknown 53:37

Yeah, it was like 20 bucks.

SPEAKER_00 53:38

It's like a so for the specialty cocktail?

SPEAKER_01 53:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:42

So I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 53:42

You're like ding ding ding ding. Ding ding. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 53:44

That was like because my team has been talking about it specifically. The cocktail band is Tanika Reeves. They've been talking about uh signature cocktail. That's the word I was looking for. A signature cocktail for the festival. And so um Tito's was our sponsor last year. They're our sponsor again this year. We're probably gonna have more sponsors besides Tito's. But I was like, man, we I looked at how many, I think they sold like 800,000.

SPEAKER_04 54:06

Millions of dollars worth of sweet. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 54:10

And they give you a cup with it, and then they charge you 20 bucks. They ran out of cups for you.

SPEAKER_04 54:15

They ran out of cups for for me when I got mine. They ran out of cups. So exactly so get it in time.

SPEAKER_00 54:21

That's the difference between Sunday, the last time we have an affordable cocktail, which is 12 bucks. That's what most of our cocktails are. Sure. And you can sell a signature cocktail. A few dollars more. Yeah, get a cup. You get the signature cocktail, make it really good, make something that everybody gets.

SPEAKER_04 54:36

With vodka.

SPEAKER_00 54:37

Yeah, I said I was when I looked at the honey deuce numbers, I said, you know what? Let's just steal the recipe. Let's figure it. You can't, though. Yeah, you can't trademark a cocktail recipe. There's no way you can do that.

SPEAKER_01 54:48

People hang on to those cups.

SPEAKER_00 54:49

Yeah. Oh, and our merch.

SPEAKER_01 54:51

So it's like a marketing long brain demon joke.

SPEAKER_00 54:54

Absolutely. We sell so much merch at the festival because people are also they're emotional buyers. They're they're out there, they're they're excited, they see a t-shirt that says Black Food Truck Festival. They're like, I'm getting it. Yeah, like I got it. I'm getting it. Um so our merch sells out every year on Saturday.

SPEAKER_05 55:09

Oh, good note. Refillable water bottle.

SPEAKER_00 55:11

But then we wanted to get a hydration station that

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SPEAKER_00 55:14

we could have, you can get buy a refillable water bottle, but we've been looking for some that are a good price that we can get now from China. But getting things from China right now is uh is a mess with the customs and tariffs and so on and so forth. So we're working on that. Because we can get a water sponsor with those cups that get refillable cups and they take those cups to those hydration stations. And then we're also thinking about building a hydration station with tent, and like you can come in and we can interview the artists that come off stage. I'm telling you, you guys have got me uh fired up right now. I've been watching Coachella and watching all of these other, you know, Essence and all of these other festivals, and um, I'm like, yo, how can we make it? Because Charleston is the place, you know, it's been underrated for so long, and a lot of big artists don't come here, and a lot of you know, uh big festivals and think they don't come here. And so people are still moving to Charleston. We gotta make it ourselves. Yeah, it's fine. That's that's the whole that's the whole point.

SPEAKER_04 56:08

Heck yeah. Thanks for your time today, Marcus.

SPEAKER_00 56:10

I appreciate you guys for having me and allowing me to save space to come in and dump uh everything that's in my mind out onto the podcast.

SPEAKER_04 56:18

We're happy to be here for it.

SPEAKER_00 56:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 56:20

Well, we know where people are gonna be April 26th through 28th.

SPEAKER_00 56:24

24th through 26th. Oh, she's been our purposes for so long. You're mixing up the years, the 24th through the 26th. Um, visit Blackfoodtruckfestival.com for your tickets um across all platforms YouTube, Facebook, Instagram. It's all Black Food Truck Festival.

SPEAKER_01 56:40

And you'll be seeing tons of PR very soon.

SPEAKER_00 56:43

I like that. I like that. You will be, you will be. Let's go. Let's go, Amanda. Let's go. ABC, let's go.

SPEAKER_04 56:48

Let's go. Thanks again, Marcus. Really appreciate your time. Thank you, listeners. Uh, thanks for our sponsors of Charleston Media Solutions, S C R A and King and Columbus. And uh a quick shout out to Jerry Feels Good with the beats. Rachel, you're doing a great job too. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_02 57:06

Uh, and that's she's so smart.

SPEAKER_00 57:10

You know, oh you're talking about the attendees, right? Oh, because I can't say that.

SPEAKER_04 57:16

Hey, I'm gonna put you on the spot real quick. Would you be into giving tickets out if somebody does comments?

SPEAKER_00 57:21

100%.

SPEAKER_04 57:22

Uh their favorites last year's music talent.

SPEAKER_00 57:27

I gotta pay I gotta pair, I have a pair of two VIP tickets. What? I'll do it.

SPEAKER_04 57:31

I you're I'm not a I'm I can't win. Rachel, you can't win. I love that. Um Thanks again for your time, boss.

SPEAKER_00 57:43

I was I was good to see you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 57:45

And we're out