History of Chickenfest
Darboy, or Darboy USA, is a family-friendly community straddling the county boundary line of two adjacent towns (Town of Buchanan in Outagamie County and the Town of Harrison in Calumet County). In 2003, the Town of Harrison celebrated its sesquicentennial. During that year, many events were held to honor the town’s 150 years of existence. The main event of the year was a community festival put together by the Town of Harrison and held at Darboy Community Park, which is jointly owned by the Town of Buchanan and the Town of Harrison. This festival gave the people living in Darboy the chance to get together with friends and neighbors as a community.
Due to the great success of the event bringing people together as a community, several members of the Kiwanis Club of Darboy thought it would be a good idea to hold a similar event each year as a way to bring people together as a community. This vision was realized the following year in 2004 when the first Chickenfest was held. The name of the festival was selected as a result of the community’s popular restaurant/banquet hall being known for its chicken dinners. Due to the success of the event, Chickenfest became an annual happening in Darboy, USA. Yes, Chickenfest, is a pretty unique name, but don’t judge a book by its cover, as festival goers that have attended will tell you. When your festival is named Chickenfest, you can have a chicken mascot which the kids adore. You can have hourly chicken dance contests. You can have wing eating contests. You can have a Chickenfest parade. The list goes on and on. Oh yes, there are carnival rides for all ages and a midway full of games, a large craft show, fireworks, and several FREE children’s events also. Chickenfest spares no expense to bring the best talent and shows to the area. With one of the largest festival tents in the state, weather isn’t a big concern. The festival uses one of the best production companies in the state and has a valuable core group of corporate sponsors which have never held back, even in rough economic times.
Chickenfest does provide needed funds for the Kiwanis Club of Darboy, a service organization of Kiwanis International, to support various youth programs and its mission of serving the children of the world. The hundreds of volunteers from local youth sport and nonprofit organizations, that are vital to make an event this big successful, earn needed dollars to support their organizations. However, the primary focus of the event, is to give back to the surrounding communities by providing a FREE FAMILY FRIENDLY event. Each year since the original Chickenfest, the event has grown in popularity at phenomenal rate, due to the hard work and dedication of the event organizers and the relationships that developed with key sponsors, volunteer groups, the towns, the county, and its vendors and contractors. A key alliance was formed in 2008 with 95.9 KISS FM (part of the Woodward Radio Group) and two gentlemen by the names of Greg Bell, Vice-President/General Manager of Woodward Radio Group and Dayton Kane, Program Director of 95.9 KISS FM. It should be mentioned that Woodward Radio was associated with the event from its humble beginnings. The goal was to put our resources together in order to bring National musical artists and rising pop stars to the festival for the teens, tweens, and young adults of the Fox Valley and Northeast Wisconsin area. The main goals were these concerts were going to be FREE and be performed in a safe family friendly atmosphere. 2008 marked the first 95.9 KISS FM Concert which brought in Pop Star Ryan Cabrera (www.myspace.com/ryancabrera). In 2009, the 95.9 KISS FM concert was stepped up a notch, and the “chick” was put into Chickenfest. Four acts were brought in for the 2009 KISS FM concert and no one went home disappointed. Musical acts included JADA (www.myspace.com/jada), Tina Parol (www.myspace.com/tinaparol ), Verona Grove (www.myspace.com/veronagrove ) and Reality Star and Pop Sensation Brooke Hogan (www.myspace.com/brookehoganmusic ).
Plans are already in the works for 2010. In 2010, Chickenfest will have one of the largest if not the largest festival tents in the state and Event Production Systems will be providing state of the art video screens, staging, sound systems, laser lights, and concert production equipment that will make 2010, and the 3rd annual 95.9 KISS FM concert, an unbelievable experience.
2011 Title Sponsors
LocationDarboy Community Park - N9334 Noe Road, Appleton,
WI, 54915
Located 1 mile south of the Darboy Club, 2 blocks off County N, on the
corner of Midway and Noe Roads. (West of Sunrise Elementary School)
Parking at Gerritts Middle School, Woodland Elementary, and Sunrise Elementary with bus service to and from the park. (THURSDAY - Woodland and Sunrise ONLY, FRIDAY & SATURDAY - All three schools)
