Wood Booger, Skunk Ape, Grassman, Wild Man, Sasquatch, Yeti — you’ve heard of the species in one way or another. “I just go with Bigfoot. It kinda gets it all done,” says Toby Sells, organizer of Memphis Bigfoot Festival. “I love the description of the thing — it’s like ‘walkie-talkie,’ tells you exactly what it is.”
In 2017, Sells, who is also the Flyer’s news editor, pulled off his first Bigfoot Festival in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Patterson-Gimlin film, perhaps the most well-known and the only non-debunked footage of Bigfoot. “I really only expected like eight or so Bigfoot nerds to show up,” Sells says. “But to my surprise, 300 to 400 people came.”
This year, though, the festival is limited to 200 people due to Covid concerns, but the agenda for the day will be just as fun with costume and howling contests, a roundup of Bigfoot news from the past two years, an in-person appearance by renowned cryptozoologist Lyle Blackburn, and a virtual appearance by Pamula Pierce Barcelou, who restored and re-released her father’s film, The Legend of Boggy Creek (the docudrama that made Sells fall in love with Bigfoot back in the third grade). But the best part, Sells says, is at the end of the day, when festival-goers can take over the mic and tell their own Bigfoot encounter stories.
“You know there’s a monster in the woods; it’s scary and fun,” Sells says. “And it’s like if we see a Bigfoot, do we kill it for science to take it seriously? So far, the answer’s been we leave it alone. We don’t have a body yet, but that’s what fuels the mystery, right?”
Memphis Bigfoot Festival, Memphis Made Brewing Co., 786 Cooper, Saturday, October 30th, 4-8 p.m., $10.