The new, three-day barbecue festival slated for May at Tom Lee Park will be called “SmokeSlam” and will come with the biggest purse in pork barbecue competition history, organizers said.
Forward Momentum, the group behind the new festival, announced the details Thursday afternoon. The event will take place May 16-18, basically the same dates now scheduled for Memphis In May’s World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest at Liberty Park.
The SmokeSlam purse is $250,000. To judge it, Forward Momentum partnered with the Memphis BBQ Network (MBN), and the event will be sanctioned by that group. Teams can compete in whole hog, ribs, and pulled pork with prizes awarded across five places per category, totaling $150,000 in prize money.
The competition will feature seven other categories: dessert, bacon, duck, poultry, beef, seafood, and wings. The top-five placing teams across all those categories will share a total prize of $40,000. Competition in these categories is sanctioned by the World Food Championship. Each winner in these categories will get a golden ticket to the World Food Championship.
The grand prize in the MBN Pork competition will be $50,000 for the winning team. Small prizes to the value of $10,000 will also be awarded.
The festival will include a carnival with a Ferris wheel, a carousel, and games; a central marketplace, which will be a partnership with local businesses where fans will be able to buy merchandise and other goods; and an interactive element where fans will be able to sample food and participate in fun food-related events. The festival will also feature live music on all three nights.
“Our event is called a festival because we aim to attract barbecue fans, but also families, music lovers, and young people from Memphis and beyond,” says Mike Smith from Forward Momentum.
Applications for the event will open online next week. Space will be limited to “ensure the quality of competition and the best use of the venue space for a high-quality fan experience,” the organizers said. A SmokeSlam steering committee will make the final selection of teams.
Team booths will be available on the river in Tom Lee Park and on Riverside Drive. The cost will range from $2,000 for a basic space to $3,500 for a larger booth.
SmokeSlam’s tagline is “The World’s Ultimate BBQ Showdown.” For steering committee member Melzie Wilson, it ”perfectly captures the essence of barbecue and the intensity of competition, which is what this event is all about.”
“I have no doubt it will attract Memphians from all walks of life and visitors from all parts of the U.S. to Downtown Memphis.”
