Turnout suffered after heavy winds Saturday afternoon, April 20, forced Food Truck Wars organizers to close early for safety reasons.
Organizer Jason Faria said overall, attendance at the three-day event held in the parking lot of Kwantlen Polytechnic University was down “a bit.”
“We definitely faced some weather challenges this year, which we have every year. But, it seems to get progressively worse,” Faria told the Langley Advance Times.
“Usually about 35 per cent of attendees come on that Saturday night and we had to tell them basically not to come any more as of 4:30,” Faria explained.
As well, there were a lot of other things going on in Metro Vancouver, including the Earth Day event in Langley City’s Douglas Park and the Vaisakhi Parade in Surrey, both on Saturday.
“We couldn’t have planned it on a worse weekend in terms of the number of events going on,” Faria commented.
This year, 47 food trucks took part in the third annual edition of the annual event at KPU, which included live entertainment, an artisans market and a designated kid zone with bouncy house, facepainting, and crafts stations.
KPU’s Brew Lab was open to the public for two days of the festival, Friday and Saturday, with brewery tours and tastings.
Dos Amigos Tex-Mex food truck won the People’s Choice Award 2024 and posted a thank you, saying they were forever grateful, “pumped and proud of this achievement.”
Other winners included the Guerilla Q BBQ for best meat sweats, Mom’s Grilled Cheese for best between the bun, Taco Nori Sushi for best international fusion, Real Mac and Cheese for best classic, Crema Ice Cream and Desserts for best sweets, and Shameless Buns for best vegetarian/plant-based food.
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