by Ronda Payne
With the upcoming Summer Fort Classic and Summer Fort Festival events, Thunderbird Show Park saw the opportunity to create more fun for everyone in attendance around a common interest: food.
One connection led to another. The people at Thunderbird asked their regular tent company if they knew anyone in the food truck circles. Folks at the tent company contacted an event planner they work with who knows the industry well and soon things started rolling.
Laine Ogilvie of MemoryLaine Events has been connected with food truck operators for a number of months and her connections made her the natural choice to set up the additional food options for visitors to the show park during the August events.
“I went out and got some food trucks who were interested,” Ogilvie said.
It was her sister and brother-in-law’s food truck business that initially got Ogilvie interested in the industry. She’s added food truck events to the other events she works on.
“I’m all in,” she said in regards to how she feels about the food truck business.
In fact, she started the Fraser Valley Food truck Association in January.
Ogilvie thinks the reason Thunderbird wanted to incorporate the food trucks into the Fort events is two-fold.
“They only have a couple of food venues on site there and food trucks are really [popular],” she said. “And food trucks are so easy, they are self-contained and require nothing from Thunderbird.”
With the addition of the food trucks, enjoying the events becomes that much easier for families with diverse tastes.
“It’s a fun, new, unique thing to add to the classic,” she noted. “I hope that all the food trucks get quite a bit of business and I hope that everyone at Thunderbird enjoys them.”
Ogilvie also hopes that this foray into bringing food trucks to Thunderbird for these events will lead to even more fun with the food trucks at next year’s events.
“Like a food truck fest at the classics,” she said. “Something to grow from.”
Participating food trucks will be serving everything from mini donuts to Russian food, Caribbean food to goodies from Hot Grandma’s.