Asparagus Festival:
We've Got Spear-It, Yes We Do

25 Years of the Stockton Asparagus Festival

by JENN THORNTON | All Photos courtesy Stockton Asparagus Festival

Live from Speckman Farms

Given the Stockton Asparagus Festival’s many high points—such as Sunset magazine bestowing the event with its “Best of the West Food Fest” moniker in 2000—it’s difficult to picture the Festival’s first-ever press conference, which was held in an asparagus shed at Stockton’s Speckman Farms. While far from where the Festival is at today, these unorthodox beginnings are to be expected from an entirely homegrown event, one that belongs 100 percent to its namesake community, making it the least garden-variety food fest to have ever raised a tent—or a dime.

Asparaugs Festival The nationally-acclaimed Stockton Asparagus Festival would not be what it is today—a benchmark among charitable fetes—were it not for the visionary leadership of its founders, Joe Travale, Gordon Medlin, and Bill DePaoli. Their intentions for the event were three-fold: to provide a positive image for the City of Stockton, to promote tourism, and to raise funds for area non-profits. Under the steady guidance of the Festival’s ‘Big Three’, volunteer support at every level of the Festival, and “seed money” from Bob Eberhardt, who believed strongly enough in the project’s mission and its potential to fund the entire enterprise, the Festival commenced in April 1986 at Oak Grove Regional Park.

A multiple of unknowns

“The first Festival was truly grassroots,” Executive Director Kate Post recalls. “Everything was literally from the ground up. There were a multiple of unknowns, but we had a bunch of people with can-do attitudes determined to see it succeed.”

Chief among Festival organizers’ concerns at the time was attendance—would people actually show up, and if so, how many? Without a crystal ball to gauge the number of festival-goers, organizers were left to the mercy of the almighty guess. “We simply had no idea how many people would come,” Post explains, “so we brought in 1,000 pounds of asparagus, which at the time seemed completely outrageous.” Considering that almost 40,000 pounds of the featured greens are now trucked in for the modern incarnation of the Festival, it was a little outlandish—though not in the way that Post and her cohorts initially thought.

Asparagus Festival The very first day of the Festival’s opening weekend brought excitement, jitters, and a few glitches, but mostly hundreds of people. Post remembers being both surprised and slightly panicked to see a line of cars, bumper-to-bumper, snaking their way to the Festival gates. On the one hand the would-they-or-wouldn’t-they arrive question had been answered, and, assuming the asparagus held out, all looked good on the horizon. Just twenty minutes prior to the Festival’s first and forever launch into Stockton’s consciousness, the venue lost power, which, thanks to luck, quick action, and a timely plea to the Electrical Gods, was restored without incident. With all disasters avoided, the first enthusiastically received Festival was underway.

Stockton has a field day

Uncommonly profitable from its inaugural year, the Stockton Asparagus Festival accomplished its goal and became an instant hit with the community, which would continue to attend subsequent Festivals in droves each year. Not even the Festival’s ‘Big Three’ could have forecasted that asparagus would be so delicious and so fun for so long, despite their most optimistic projections. The seemingly impossible has come to pass—and in a huge, holy-cow sort of way.

Asparagus Festival The Festival has, over the years, introduced a number of favored mainstays and new activities that have kept it fresh and surprising for both new and returning visitors. There’s Asparagus Alley (where all the asparagus dishes are served) and the Celebrity Kitchen, as well as an increasingly diversified slate of arts and crafts vendors, strolling performers, eating competitions, live music performances, children’s activities, animal demos, and sporting competitions.

The once skeleton crew heading operations for the Stockton Asparagus Festival is now a machine that, year after gainful year, gears up for the annual event starting the November before it begins and concludes with a wrap-up meeting the May after it ends. “It’s constant,” explains Post, who, together with current Festival President C.P. Riddle and Volunteer Coordinator Leslie Snyder, works tirelessly and creatively to keep the Festival’s momentum at a breakneck pace. Further powering this effort is a 50-plus-member committee of volunteers and a working board of directors who roll up their sleeves to do whatever the Festival requires, and you might be surprised the length of the to-do list—assigned tasks include everything from working admission gates to waste management.

A fork in the road

In 2004, urban sprawl and popularity motivated Festival organizers to switch venues from the event’s 18-year home in Oak Grove Regional Park to Stockton’s expansive downtown Waterfront District. Composed of 31 acres and several city blocks, the Festival’s new home skyrocketed an already successful event into another stratosphere of possibility. New opportunities for water-related activities opened up, entertainment venues were tapped to host A-list entertainment, and transportation options increased. The new-look Festival not only attracted record numbers of attendees, but high-visibility media attention from regional and national outlets.

A celebration with a cause

Chalk up the longevity of the Stockton Asparagus Festival to savvy marketing or just a darn good idea (in truth it’s both), but trace its success to charity. The philanthropic arm of the Festival’s mission has always been at the heart of the operation. Staffed and run by approximately 5,000 volunteers during Festival weekend, all of who receive an hourly wage for working the event, the Festival has returned more than $4.7 million to local community, which equates to a more-than-you-can-count distribution of checks to local non-profits.

Indeed, it is the depth of community-giving that makes the Stockton Asparagus Festival unique to and prized by San Joaquin, and what most separates it from all other events—not so much because the idea of a charitable festival is groundbreaking, but because it has been so successfully modeled here and consistently emulated. Economically, the Festival’s impact is well-documented. Less spoken of but just as important is the social aspect of the event. The Festival has been a crucial bridge between geographic and individual communities.

Culturally, the Festival has left no doubt that living on the veg, as San Joaquin so heartily and happily does, is a source of pride. “Every city needs a celebration,” Post says. “Cultural celebrations are all about human emotion. The Stockton Asparagus Festival brings out the best in all of us. There is nothing like the warm feeling generated by a community working together.” Oh, and 40,000 pounds of fresh asparagus to be had by all. [SJM]