Big Apple Barbecue

Challenge

Launched in 2003, the Big Apple Barbecue has grown from a small festival to a marquee culinary event with hundreds of thousands of annual attendees. Held around Madison Square Park in New York City, the event showcases the best barbecue food from around the country, while featuring premier musical performances and premium hospitality experiences. With the growth of the event, though, has come challenges across production, sponsor retention, and tickets sales.

In 2017, Eiger Marketing Group partnered with Upsilon Ventures to own and operate the Big Apple Barbecue. The partnership was formed to develop the strategic vision forward and take the event to a new level. Together, Eiger and Upsilon have worked to maximize the event through an optimized attendee journey, securing new sponsorship opportunities, optimization of value for current partners, and generating tickets sales with a focus on VIP experiences. In addition, the event continues to focus its charitable mission on supporting the work of the Madison Square Park Conservancy.

Since the inception of the Big Apple Barbeque, the event has generated over 1.2 billion media impressions and $1.3 million in donations for the Madison Square Park Conservancy.  Meanwhile 2+ million people have attended the event, with 750+ thousand plates of food served and 300+ thousand pounds of meat consumed.

The consumer experience at the event continues to be escalated year-over-year with enhancements such as a refreshed website, an engaging video content series with BBQ pitmasters, a mobile app, exclusive VIP packages, sponsor engagement zones, and cashless-RFID technology integration. Now, we’d call that a smokin’ good time.