TO THE GILLS
Wellfleet OysterFest 2023 Recap
Coming off 2023 OysterFest - if not Wellfleet’s most well-attended shellfish-Woodstock (WoodShuck?), definitely the most expensive AND the highest grossing in the event’s 20+ year history - it’s looking like 2024 may be the year the scales tip, that critical mass has its ticket punched, and the output of extra hands on deck ($40k+ last year) and tech ($50k+ last year) finds the sweet spot, and nets the most successful and rewarding CoaShella yet (see what we did there?).
But before we jump into all of that, let’s be visited by the Phosts of Oyster’s Past and look in on some reviews of that event 12 months ago. No Skip Recap option needed - if we’ve pulled it for you, trust us, you’ll be happy to take a look back at the shindig 20,000 smiling faces who collectively put away 100,000 oysters in 48 hours. Decadence by any other name …
First, let’s get it from the source - the org that hosts the event, a post by the Artists now known as WOA (Wellfleet Oyster Alliance) recalled their own event thusly:
The 2023 “Homecoming OysterFest” Was Costly - But Also Very Profitable
You need to spend money to make money, or so the receipts say.
Now what does Sam Pollack at the Independent have to say? And while we're here, let’s pause for a second to recognize the legendary eye of Nancy Bloom - longtime Independent photographer, award winning artist(e), and all around top tier human. Nancy finds a perch and gives us some real scope of what the turnout was, and what we can expect to be surpassed this year. Get there early and pray to the parking gods.
OysterFest Wins Big This Year
Love that a Local takes the gold. Spoiler alert: Ben Morgan, 23 (Eastham native) won the gold in 2023 after winning the silver in 2022 and the bronze in 2021. Ben's been in the competition since 2016 and shucks for your pleasure on the regular at Native Cape Cod Seafood in Provincetown. He only asks that you be cool when you meet him and not to ask him to sign any body parts. At least in the daylight.
Finally we shout out Eric Williams, dancing for The out-of-town Man, Cape Cod Times. We’ll start a gofundme and get Eric something with pixel count so he doesn't have to pull 2013 archive photos for this 2023 write-up.
Shucking good time: Wellfleet OysterFest returns to downtown
So maybe the event attendance only being 20,000 people deep over two days was by design, and now they can rip the governor off of that thing and watch it tear off like a rogue golf cart across the fairways of Main Street Wellfleet. One can dream.
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Next week we’ll bring you the run of show for the weekend, catch you up on who’s going to be performing, and try to dig some bits and bytes out of some players sunk in the deep oyster game.
Stay tuned for developments on a tattoo pop-up - we’re working on it.
Are you going to OysterFest 2024? Do you want to report on it for HyperLocal? Share your photos? We’d love to hear from you: info@hyperlocalcapecod.com. Operators are standing by.
