Welcome to the 5th annual Flathead Food Truck Festival!

June 21st & 22nd - Friday 3-9pm Saturday 12-9pm

We are a 501(c)3 organization, dedicated to serving our community through public events, culinary arts scholarships and other community related efforts. We take pride in our small festival that has grown from humble beginnings in 2020 to being one of the largest public events in NW Montana!

It wouldn't be possible without you, our foodies, food truck groupies and amazing friends & neighbors here in our beautiful Valley.

Each year, we strive to bring the very best food trucks, local musicians and creative artists together for a fun filled community event.

We partner with the Artists & Craftsmen of the Flathead (ACF) to share the organizing efforts as well as the multitude of costs associated with hosting such a large event.

We are the only NW Montana Food Truck Festival that is organized by Food Truck owners, for Food Truck owners!

Our Mission is simple, bring as many of our Food Truck Friends together in one place for a weekend of Food, Live Music & Fun!

We're Looking for volunteers! Free admission and free entrée from the truck of your choice!

Email us at events@FlatheadFTF.com

- What's New for 2024 -

- Combo Packages

- Taster Sized Portions

- VIP Tickets

- Discounted Presale Beer & Wine Vouchers

- Non-Profit Donation Option

See details below for more info

A huge THANK YOU to our generous sponsors:

Trail West Bank, Fidelity National Title, Comparion Insurance, Great Northern Floor Coatings, SunRift Beer Co, ACF, and the Daily Inter Lake.

1) Combo Packages

• In an effort to simplify the experience for guests, we've created a few combo packs that include discounted admission for anyone 13 & over and a certain qty of Taster Portion vouchers (see the ticket description for how many).
• We know how difficult it can be to figure out what you want when there are so many choices. For a Family of 2 adults and 3 kids under 12, the Family Combo pack would allow each kiddo and both parents to try 2 different trucks of their choice.
• Additional 2-packs of Tasters are available to add to your cart in case you need to try all the trucks! And really, who Doesn't?

Benefits For You:

• Using vouchers means fewer card & cash transactions for you to manage, that means fewer trips to the ATM, fewer chances of misplacing or forgetting your card.
• It could mean being able to send a responsible young one to a truck without them needing mom & dad's card or cash.
• We know things might be tight, including discounted admission helps you stay on budget.

Benefits For Trucks:

• A transaction with a voucher is much faster than with card or cash, this will help keep wait times at a minimum.
• It reduces the Food Truck's credit card fees which can add up fast! Most credit card processors charge the truck somewhere around 3.5% + 15 cents for each transaction (more if it's contactless). On a ~$5 purchase, that's almost 10% of their profit on that transaction.

2) By Popular Demand - Taster Portions!

You asked, we listened!

Each Food Truck has selected at least one menu item to offer as a smaller "few-bites" Taster Portion.

Now you can try something from as many trucks as you like without the commitment of a full sized meal!

How it works:

• All Combo Packages come preloaded with a certain qty of Taster Portion vouchers (see the ticket description for how many)
• Vouchers are valid either day and at any Food Truck of your choice.
• When you arrive at the Festival and check-in at the gate, you'll receive your vouchers and be ready to go!
• Need more vouchers than your Combo comes with? Additional 2-packs of vouchers are available to add to your cart
• Presale of Taster Portion vouchers helps the trucks know what the demand will be so they can be prepared

3) By Popular Demand - VIP Tickets!

1 adult Admission for Friday and Saturday, plus Taster Portion & Beer & Wine vouchers

**SKIP THE LINES!** 

• Skip the line at the gate, at all food trucks and at the beer tent!
• 2 day Admission for 1 adult 
• 4 "Taster Portion" Vouchers 
• 4 Adult beverages of your choice @ the SunRift Beer & Wine Tent
• Taster and Bev vouchers are valid either day.  
• Additional Taster Portions and discounted* beverage vouchers available for purchase.

*Discounted beverage presale ends 6/14/24

4) Discounted* Presale Beer & Wine Vouchers

You can now purchase vouchers for beer, wine, cider & seltzers in advance

How it works:

• $1 discount on alcoholic beverages when purchased in advance*
• When you arrive at the Festival and check-in at the gate, you'll receive your vouchers and be ready to go!
• Fewer card & cash transactions means fewer trips to the ATM & fewer chances of misplacing or forgetting your card

*Discounted beverage presale ends 6/14/24

5) Non-Profit Donation Option

The organizers of the Food Truck Festival have worked on establishing a 501c3 non-profit organization for several years with the goal of giving back to our local community.

• In 2024 we have been granted 501(c)3 status and have started a scholarship that benefits our local High School students.
• Proceeds from the festival will go toward scholarships to FVCC's Culinary Arts programs, giving students the opportunity to explore careers in the restaurant industry.
• 100% of donations made through online donations and in person donations will go into the scholarship fund.
• Donations to the scholarship and sponsorships of the festival are tax deductible, a donation letter for donations over $250 is needed for your taxes and available upon request.

We appreciate your generosity and commitment to the success of our young ones!

About the festival & the organizers - A condensed but not very short story.

Year #1: 1st annual Flathead Food Truck Festival

The Flathead Food Truck Festival was started in the Spring of 2020 by Jack & Barbara Veverka, owners of Copacabana Brazilian Barbecue Food Truck.

As Covid became a major concern, public events, weddings & festivals were rapidly being canceled or postponed. Jack & Barbara realized that not only their own livelihood, but that of all the other food trucks in the Flathead Valley were going to be massively impacted.

They decided to "throw together" an outdoor Food Truck Festival that would meet the requirements/restrictions for Covid regulations. This proved so much more difficult than they thought it would be. The regulations constantly changed, requiring more and more planning and time than they had realized it would. During that time, Ryan Garnache, owner of KnucklHed BBQ Food Truck saw the struggle and offered to help with what ever was needed.

Even with all of the requirements met, right up to the very day of the festival the Health Department and City gov were threatening to not allow it to happen.

By sheer determination and persistence, the first Flathead Food Truck Festival took place on July 18th, 2020.

With 13 Food Trucks spaced out around the south field of the Fairgrounds, the community took notice and showed up with overwhelming support!

To say the least, it was an incredible success and a clear message from the entire Valley, "We want an annual Food Truck Festival!".

It's been a labor of love ever since.

2nd annual Food Truck Fest (2021)

With zero budget to get started, Jack, Barbara & Ryan set out to find a way to make year #2 happen. They paid with money out of their own pockets for advertising, banners, porta-potties, fencing, security, etc... hoping if they built it, the people would come.

The search for a venue. The Fairgrounds is a great location, but they require all food trucks to pay 15% of their gross sales. This is a big "ouch" to mobile food vendors. Often times a Food Truck's operating margin is 25-30% profit. If someone is taking 15% right off the top, it stings.

We were able to secure a vacant lot across from the Kalispell Center Mall and next-door to SunRift Beer Co for no charge.

We set the date for the last weekend of June, hoping it would be cooler than the previous year's July festival.

SunRift would rope off their parking lot, provide the beverages and have live music.

The Food Trucks would setup in the vacant lot next door and folks could freely roam from one area to the other, what a great plan! What could go wrong? =)

Whelp, June in Montana can, and often does go wrong.

Temps were well over 90* on Friday and nearly 100* on Saturday. No shade, no guest seating near the Food Trucks, nothing but barren dusty ground.

SunRift's space was overrun with people looking for any shaded spot to perch. Once again the community support was overwhelming, attendance was nearly triple what it had been the previous year!

But man, what a blunder on the part of us organizers! Our favorite sarcastic (and probably most fitting) comment on social media for that year was "No place to sit, Nice grass!" A genuine thank you to that person. While the comment wasn't really appreciated by us at the time, it has been a motivator to do better ever since. In fact, our official-unofficial motto has become "Let's just try to suck a little less every year" AKA, Let's do our best to improve the festival as much as we can every year. =P

Years 3-5 of the Food Truck Fest (2022-2024)

We decided right then that we couldn't take another "Nice grass!" comment.

We could do better. We had to do better.

Despite the added costs of renting the Fairgrounds and the 15% the trucks would have to pay, we decided that there really wasn't any better alternative. Back to the Fairgrounds it was. At least they have grass. Well, kind of...

But we also needed tents for shade or shelter depending on how the weather would be. And tables. And 2 full days of music, which meant a stage, an audio guy and stage manager (we're food truck guys, what do we know about running 16 different bands & musicians?) And parking attendants. More and better advertising (if we're inviting all of our Food Truck Friends, we had better be putting in the work and making sure they have a successful weekend!), crowd security, night security, a refrigeration truck for Food Trucker's to store extra product, insurance, an ambulance (just in case!) …and the list goes on!

But man... Did the community show up or what??? Over 14,000 attendees over the 2 day festival in 2022! WOW! Y'all absolutely blew us away. We never in our wildest dreams thought that in just 3 years, the Flathead Food Truck Festival would become the 2nd largest event at the Fairgrounds. Only the fair has more traffic, but that's because it's a week long event!

Without a doubt, we've had growing pains. It's nearly impossible to predict the year-over-year-over-year attendance growth and to plan properly for it.

We thank you for your patience, your polite (and maybe sometimes not-so polite) critiques, and certainly for the outstanding support you show for our local "Small Businesses on Wheels".

We never set out to be organizers of a large festival while simultaneously running our own businesses and personal lives.

We're not the smartest and we're far from perfect, we're just Food Truck owners.

Future Food Truck Fest's

• A HUGE milestone that we're very proud of is being granted 501(c)3 non-profit status. We're excited for the new opportunities this will allow us to pursue and the deeper community involvement we've wanted.
• Our local Food Truck community grows by leaps and bounds every year. We appreciate the love you show all of us.
• We pledge to make this event better and better each year. Hundreds of volunteer hours go into planning these 2 days. For all of you - our friends, families and neighbors in the Valley.

Thank you for reading this far, it really means a lot!

Your Flathead Food Truck Fest Team,

Jack, Barbara & Ryan