Great weather brings record crowds to eat Chicken Bog

October 21, 2012 Loris, SC - Crowds swamped Loris streets for the 33rd Loris Bog-Off Festival this past Saturday.  With an estimated 35,000 people in attendance last year, it is difficult for festival goers to believe that the festival started in 1979 with an attendance of 2000 people.  Samantha Norris, Loris Chamber of Commerce, said, “From everyone I talked to more people attended this year than ever.”

The day was packed with music, vendors and food and, did we say food?
 
The Bog-Off is known, of course for its chicken bog – a dish made of rice, stewed chicken and sausage.  Johnny Allen does a lot of the cooking and said that they cook up two batches – each will serve 1,500 people.  By 2 pm they had already sold out the first batch and were working on the second. “By the day is over, we will sell out all three thousand servings,” Allen told us.  The money raised at $7 per meal will support projects of the Loris Chamber of Commerce.

McLeod Loris sponsored an adjacent tent with tables and chairs where folks could sit and leisurely enjoy their chicken bog.

For those of you that don’t like chicken bog – only a few, we are sure – festival vendors had a full display of hot dogs, sausages, funnel cake, deep fried turkey legs, fried corn on the cob and much, much more.

There was some food not normally seen at a festival. Cassy Whitlow of Cupcakes by Cravinleys brought a ton of cupcakes from their store at Broadway at the Beach. Cassy said, “This is our first time here.  Business is really good.  We had heard about the huge crowds and thought this festival would be a good way of getting our name out.  We will definitely be coming back next year.”

Publicity for the event named Parmalee,  a Southern Country Rock band from Greenville, North Carolina as their headline entertainment act and the crowd seemed to really enjoy their music.  The group sang their hit song “Musta had a good time” to the cheers of the audience.  Other groups played throughout the day like the Painted Man with crowd pleasing songs like “September” and “Whole Lotta Loving.”

How does all this happen?  Samantha Norris tells us it takes a full year of planning  and more than 120 volunteers to manage the planning and the production. 

For more pictures taken at the 2012 Loris Bog-Off go to our FaceBook page.