04/03/2017
Thank you for the feedback about the Maryland Chicken Wing Festival . We wanted to wait until we had a chance to reflect as a group and to hear our guests opinions before responding. The challenges with parking, the long lines, compounded with restaurants running out of wings were simply unacceptable to you and to us. For that we are SORRY. There is not a good explanation for this other than we had large influx of guests that we did not anticipate.
This is the 4th annual Chicken Wing Festival each one slightly bigger, slightly better than the last and the first time we have had such challenges . We consider ourselves seasoned in this field and can assure you that so many variables are assessed, considered and studied in the planning process. Yesterday’s event was like nothing we have ever experienced in that we had nearly four times as many people turn up than we anticipated. My apology will not change the frustration so many of you felt yesterday, however you do deserve an explanation.
Here are some ways we accommodated the influx of guests:
With the heavy traffic flow coming in the fairgrounds we opened the back gate to help minimize the wait times getting onto the grounds.
We added two additional entrances, on the fly to help accommodate the new parking lots.
We pushed our restaurants that were local to bring more wings from their establishments many of which did.
After we started having restaurants run out of wings we conveyed that information to patrons purchasing tickets as well at the front gate.
We stopped admitting guests that had not pre-paid
Obviously, our planning and reaction was not enough to ensure all our guests had a terrific experience and for that we are truly sorry.
Please reach out to me personally at [email protected] with your thoughts and concerns. Our goal is to learn from the challenges we faced and make next year even better.
MD Chicken Wing Festival Team