Event history
This festival was inaugurated in 2002 at Sahlen Field. Founder Drew Cerza, called the "Wing King" by Buffalo News, was said to have modeled the event on a fictitious festival from the 2001 movie Osmosis Jones. [1]
Jill Greenburg said, "Of local festivals that have come and gone, the Wing Fest's staying power is a result of raising approximately $200,000 for local charities and serving almost 3,000,000 chicken wings with 100 sauce varieties to over 500,000 hungry visitors over the years." In 2010, the festival was video webcast live to over 84,000 online viewers. [2]
On September 2, 2012, Joey Chestnut consumed 191 wings, weighing 7.61 pounds (3.45 kg), in 12 minutes to take competitive-eating trophy from seven-time champion Sonya Thomas, becoming the first new champion since 2006. [3] After losing to Miki Sudo in 2013, Chestnut returned to his winning ways in 2014 by breaking his own record by eating 192 wings and successfully defended his title the next year by breaking yet another record, this time eating 205 wings on September 6, 2015. Two years later, he set another record, this time of 220 wings on September 3, 2017. Geoff Esper holds the record of 281 in 2019.
With the 2020 festival canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 19th was deferred to 2021. However, the Chicken Wing Fun Run went virtual. The 2021 event was held at Highmark Stadium, to which the festival returned in 2022. The 2022 festival also added a qualifying event for the USA Mullet Championships, which Cerza found to be a fitting synergy given the haircut's popularity in ice hockey, a popular sport in Buffalo. [4]
The event will return to Sahlen Field beginning in 2025. [5]
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