SunFest Music and Art Festival

SunFest Music and Art Festival originally published on Food and Fond Memories on April 22, 2011 by sandyaxelrod 4 Comments (Edit)

A buffet table draped in hot pink and yellow with chafing dishes and serving pieces

An Event We Catered at SunFest

A white sign with list of event sponsors

SunFest Sponsors – See us Affairs to Remember Catering!

In 1982 one of the most fabulous art and music festivals began on the first weekend in May. We had just moved to Florida and attended our first SunFest. It was free and featured mostly local artists and musicians but we were hooked from the get go. As the years passed it grew into a huge event on the West Palm Beach waterfront spanning five days with big name acts, mostly Jazz, such as George Benson, Al Jarreau, Kenny G, Dave Koz and Richard Elliot. Steve and I are huge Jazz fans so we were in our glory each year. In recent years they have gone more mainstream with this year’s line-up including Earth, Wind and Fire, Gregg Allman, Jason Mraz, Styx and Ziggy Marley. Our friends refer to us as Mr. and Mrs. SunFest because we’ve never missed a day of SunFest. And until 2000 we attended as just two of the 300,000 spectators each year. In 2000 about a month before SunFest our son Brian saw an ad for catering at the event. Thinking they were looking for a caterer he called. Although that wasn’t what the ad was actually about they did need a caterer for the last night in Club SunFest a members only area where at that time a different restaurant or caterer served food to 1,500-2,500 each night. After meeting with the powers that be and presenting our proposed menu and our credentials they hired us. It was a daunting prospect but we pulled it off without a hitch. In fact they were so thrilled with the job that we did that they asked us to be the only caterer for the next year for all five nights. And that was just the beginning, we also ran a concession stand in Club SunFest all day, each day. It seemed that each year following they had us do more and more of the food service until one year in addition to Club SunFest we catered for Volunteers Hospitality, Saturday night dinner for 2,000 in Sponsors Hospitality, a private party in one of the Sky Boxes at the main stage, Happy Hour passed hors d’oeuvre in Sponsors Hospitality each of the five nights AND a big party for physicians and their spouses in the library that overlooked the main stage! Whew…….. talk about stress and exhaustion. I could have slept for a week when it was over. The following year, knowing the toll the pressure had taken on all of us we agreed to just do one night’s dinner in Sponsors Hospitality and the passed hors d’oeuvre. That way we got to make a little money but still enjoy the event. Our company Affairs to Remember Catering continued doing that until Hurricane Wilma forced us to close. Still, no regrets, it was wonderful to really be part of such a fantastic festival. So next Wednesday, April 27 Steve and I will be there because we can’t break our attendance streak. See you at SunFest.