What started as a customer appreciation cookout at Metcalfe’s Market has now become, unofficially, the largest brat and music festival in the world, featuring thousands and thousands of Johnsonville brats.
Event organizer Tim Metcalfe’s parents started out selling brats off of a 22-inch Weber grill for 50 cents outside Metcalfe’s Market in Madison during the summer holidays.
“It was just a way of saying thank you and giving back to the community,” he said. “Every year, it got a little bit bigger, and then he had to get more tables, more grills, and then he had to get volunteers, and then pay charities to help. Fast forward 43 years… we’ll probably have about 125,000 people.”
Brat Fest is going on Friday through Sunday at Willow Island at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison. Find more details at https://bratfest.com/
“Our world record, which was set about 10 years ago, was over 200,000 brats, but that was when… all we sold was brats,” he says.
Today, the menu also includes sweet corn, ice cream, and carnival food, among other things.
“So we’re now down to maybe 120,000 brats… but we’ll also sell 35,000 ears of corn, 100,000 dishes of ice cream,” Metcalfe says. “We also have a chicken chipotle brat from Johnsonville, and then we’ve got Johnsonville hot dogs for the kiddos.”
Three music stages will provide entertainment. Families can get up close and personal with animals and farm equipment, courtesy of Sloan Implement. Event-goers can also do some shopping at a new marketplace. Don’t forget about the fireworks at 9 p.m. on Sunday evening!
Roughly 1,900 volunteers will raise about $100,000 for various local charities by working at Brat Fest.
“They’re volunteering for something that they care very deeply about… you can pick the one that you want,” Metcalfe explains. “And then what those charity organizations do is they recruit people to come and work for them — they earn money for that charity.”
