Inside Pepsi Gulf Coast Jam: Food That Remembers A Little Jammer and Keeps Rocking
- Megghan McDougall
- Sep 22, 2015
- 4 min read
Among the many delicious food options inside Gulf Coast Jam over the weekend we found one truck that was serving more than just Wings and sandwiches.
The “Good to Go”, Wind creek Hospitality truck was offering great food at prices that beat most of its neighboring competitors. They had a simple menu from which I ordered a hot dog, Chips and a drink. As I was noshing my snack, proud of the great deal I just got on festival food I noticed there was a blank check to the right of the vendor table.
The Food truck worker saw me examining the check and told me that the Wind Creek Casino of Wetumpka Alabama has recently branched out to give back to various local organization. They find events they feel will be a good turn out and then look for a good local cause to give back to. 100% of the proceeds from all food purchases during Gulf Coast Jam went to the Wesley Burnham Foundation which is based directly out of Panama City, Florida.
According to the Wesley Burnham Foundations Facebook page $3,636.00 was what the food truck raised and donated to the organization.
The Wesley Burnham Foundation is a local Bay County orga
nization set up in January of this year after the Burnham family lost their youngest child Wesley. Wesley had a passion for music and guitars so in his honor the foundation was set up to support local music programs, private music lessons and purchasing instruments. In just a few short months the organization has already been able to make a substantial impact donating $20,000 to Woodlawn children development center to start a preschool scholarship fund in memory of Wesley.
The organization has big plans for the future and has started a collection of guitars signed by famous music artists to be auctioned off at a future time. For more information about where you can get involved with this organization, they can easily be found on Facebook where they post videos of Wesley and updates about where they will be honoring him next.
Our Favorite Things About Pepsi Gulf Coast Jam
It was Labor Day weekend and three full days of guitar strumming, toe tapping hand clapping country music talent; all squeezed into one converted ball park of Frank Brown in Panama City Beach. Despite the rain that delayed a few people from performing and the crowd having to evacuate and return, the event went off pretty well.
PCB Social had the opportunity to attend the 2015 Pepsi gulf coast jam and being the real lovers of music we wondered how a relatively new festival would be in terms of what we wanted from a music festival. Here are a few things we found that we were particularly digging.
Strong Online Presence
Gulf Coast Jam had several people that were constantly updating their online social media outlets. Being present online made communication easy for people that were making plans on when to go to the concert and paying attention to the weather. I was able to see on twitter when the gates were opened and when they were evacuating people out. To see what I was seeing go follow @ProducerJam or @GulfCoastJam on twitter, they are still posting pics of the weekend.
Great Photo Opportunities
What better way to remember something than with a picture? We know how much you love selfies so perfect selfie opportunities were plentiful. They had a large Gulf Coast Jam County on the coast sandcastle, a huge oversized beach chair and several canvas back drops to take selfies against. A lot of vendors followed this as well and had wooden “Photo op’s” you could poke your head through, so your face showed up on a cowboys body. Did we look Silly yes, but we know but selfies are important!
Vast Food Vendor Variety
Italian sausage and peppers, Fresh baked brick oven pizza, Jambalaya in a larger than life skillet, everything friend, cheese burgers, cheese steak, things you can put cheese on, Funnel cakes, seafood baskets, strawberry frozen lemonade, chicken on a stick, more fried foods, I did find a salad tent actually…. The Good to Go Wind Creek truck had chicken wings and chicken salad. It was really everything your taste buds could possible want all in a few rows of vendor splendor.
They had Beer, mixed drinks and wine available at multiple vendor tents and it didn’t seem like anyone was having to wait too long to get served.
Parking and Shuttles
The first night I arrived I was surprised at how much parking was still available for the crowd that was already present. After paying $20 the first night, which is standard for event parking. I parked over at Pier Park and walked like many others were doing. The parking lot also had a pick up and drop off for the many shuttles that had been set up around PCB. It
was a great way to help reduce the local traffic congestion of a holiday weekend and helped keep those that were frequenting the wine tent off the road. This was good event planning and preparation.
Security and Cleanliness
For the crowd being as large as it was, there seemed to be a decent amount of security present every so often. They stood back from the crowd as observers of course, but they yellow shirts of the DSI security company were easy to spot. The gates were well guarded and patrons were only able to enter and exit through the main gate.
“Mr. Trash” Bright green trash cans could be seen every few hundred feet in clusters. Normally at a festival the trash is a struggle. It becomes tempting to not just leave your trash on the bench because you can’t find a trash can, this was NOT the case for Gulf Coast Jam. The trash cans were frequently swapped out for empty ones and didn’t have little nasty messes around the bottoms.
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