Buy your $2K+ Food & Wine Classic pass now

You can now buy tickets, or rather, weekend passes to the inaugural Food & Wine Classic in Charleston, a fall food festival hosted by Food & Wine, Southern Living and Travel + Leisure and presented by Explore Charleston.

The festival takes place September 27-29 in and around Charleston and features over 40 celebrity chef cooking demos; wine and cocktail seminars; and the festival’s “Grand Tasting Pavilion,” which features hundreds of winemakers, distillers and culinary experts.

Weekend passes are $2,450 and can be purchased online. (Yikes!)

Visiting participating chefs and sommeliers include Tyler Florence, a popular Food Network host; TV chef Maneet Chauhan; sommelier and media personality Amanda McCrossin; and Emmy and four-time James Beard Award winning TV host, Andrew Zimmern. Local talents include chefs Mike Lata, Carey Morey and James London and sommeliers Miles White and Femi Oyediran.

Sid Evans, Southern Living editor-in-chief, explained why the Food & Wine Classic landed in Charleston: “No other place has a blend of hospitality, foodways, culture, architecture and history like the Holy City. Charleston is incredibly beloved by the readers and editors of Food & Wine, Southern Living, and Travel + Leisure, so bringing the Food & Wine Classic to Charleston was an exciting idea for all of us.”

Food & Wine’s Editor-in-Chief Hunter Lewis said he envisions the event as something that will appeal equally to visitors and locals.

“We anticipate the audience to be a mix of locals and out-of-towners who are both looking to experience Charleston’s rising prominence in the culinary world first-hand. … Attendees can expect to rub elbows with winemakers, spot world-class chefs and tastemakers, and gather with passionate wine and food lovers in the spaces we’ll share in this world-class city.”

Does Charleston need another food festival?

While the city of Charleston may be “beloved” by readers of Food & Wine, Southern Living and Travel + Leisure, it’s treasured by a local food and beverage industry that celebrates and supports its own. And while Lewis promised that “a lot” of local talent will be showcased at the new Food & Wine Classic, it’s hard to say how many local lovers of our town will be shelling out $2,450 for the weekend event.

The price is certainly on par with the level of talent and what’s being offered, but the lack of smaller-scale ticket options likely leave out a lot of local foodies.

Comments on Food & Wine’s Instagram announcement about ticket sales suggested that the pricing is pricing some visitors out:

@geauxleaux said “Why is it so expensive? This is Charleston, not LA. Hopefully we can buy single day passes, a la carte style;”
@thehungrymedium asked “When will the tickets for regular folks be available?;”
@kennertyrene asked “Will the locals who have been priced out of everything get discounts or single day or specific event passes?”

Charleston already has a big spring food festival: Charleston Wine + Food, which just celebrated its 19th year this March. Does the city need another one? That’s a hypothetical question that likely won’t have any concrete answers until after Food & Wine blows through town this September.

Lewis said that the Food & Wine Classic “builds on the 40-year legacy of the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen. This fall, we’ll bring the expertise and voices of three iconic media brands, Food & Wine, Travel + Leisure and Southern Living, together to create an intimate atmosphere in a prime location in the heart of Charleston.”

Charleston also has twice as many people living in poverty as Aspen, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and the per capita income is also about half of the famed Colorado ski town. Maybe the economic makeup of the town isn’t what matters, though, but rather the amount of money coming in from visitors. Does a city make a festival? Or is it whoever can afford to make it to the festival?

Neither Lewis nor Evans commented on contingency plans for this year’s festival — a question that organizers should be asking themselves after Charleston Wine + Food’s unfortunate weather-related cancellations this past year. Number one city or not, even Charleston isn’t immune to peak hurricane season.