Entertainment and crawfish will once again be the center of attention at Midland’s The Destination this weekend.
On Saturday, contestants of up to 20 teams will compete for not only bragging rights but also for money and a trophy at this year’s Annual Crawfish Boil Bash and Competition.
The crawfish event will start at 1 p.m. and go to 6 p.m.
The VIP access will include live music and go from 1 p.m.-12 a.m.
General admission is $35 and VIP access is $50.
Tickets can be purchased at tinyurl.com/mv2xt83p.
“This is the third year that we’ve done this,” Managing member at The Destination Gloria Salazar said. “We do this every year. It’s gotten bigger and better every year. It’s a competition that starts at 1 and goes to 6 p.m. Our target this year is to get 20 teams. We have 16 teams confirmed and we’re still signing up as we speak. We have each team that gets two bags of crawfish that are between 20 and 40 pounds so looking at what we have committed right now, we have over 2,000 pounds of crawfish.”
There will be two awards given out, including the People’s Choice and Best in Show.
“People get to sample from every team and they get to select the People’s Choice,” Salazar said. “They can go back and sample as many times as they want and that competition ends at 6 p.m.”
The judges will determine Best in Show.
The cost for teams to enter is $500, and $1,000 is the main cash prize.
“They have a cash prize along with a cool trophy of a crawfish,” Salazar said. “We also have a People’s Choice that people determine by sampling crawfish and turning in a golden ticket. The team with the most gold tickets wins. We also have a Best in Show and we’re doing a Mardi Gras theme on this one so the best in show is in cognition judges who judge appearance, enthusiasm, best costumes. They receive a prize for that as well.”
Meanwhile, there will be live music as five different bands will perform on stage.
Those include, Drawing a Blank, Loco Motives, Los Crazy Guys, Sly Devils and Roasted Crow.
Roasted Crow will start at 1 p.m. and will be followed by Sly Devils. Los Crazy Guys will perform at 5 p.m. and the Locomotives will follow. Drawing a Blank will close out at 9 p.m.
“People love to come out and have food and live entertainment,” Salazar said. “With us having a diverse and a lot of bands, there’s something for everyone. The momentum keeps building and building towards the end when the last band comes on stage. People stick around. As soon as the competition area closes, all the people come to The Destination because the winners are announced and then announced again on stage. It’s a great event.”
Salazar says the number of bands at the event has grown over the years.
The first year, there were three bands. Last year, there were four and this year will feature five.
Salazar is hopeful they will have more people in attendance this year.
“Last year, we had 643 come through the door,” Salazar said. “This year, we’ve set a higher goal of 700.”
Jordan Shepherd of Bayou Crawfish and Catering helps organize the event and comes in from Louisiana to help out.
“Shepherd, along with another guy, brings in crawfish in from Louisiana,” Salazar said. “There was a big need for crawfish out here. It’s only seasonal. … They bring the crawfish and we put the event on and do a combine all day meal like a festival type deal.”
