Glier’s Goettafest, an annual festival featuring the locally revered cuisine, is expanding into an eight-day event over two weekends. This year’s festival will take place at Newport’s Festival Park on the Levee July 25-28 and Aug. 1-4.
The first Goettafest was originally a thank you party for customers, says Kerry Schall, marketing director and special events coordinator at Glier’s Meats, Inc. The small goetta gathering was a big hit and the event gradually evolved into what it is today.
“We just couldn’t believe the support that the community had for this festival,” says Schall. “The next year, it became much more of a production and it has grown and grown ever since.”
Almost 20 years later, Goettafest is no longer a small party for goetta fanatics—the event hosted over 200,000 people in 2018 and Schall estimates over 300,000 festivalgoers will attend the double-weekend celebration this year.
