Kentucky is Home to the Largest Chicken Festival in World

Few things in this world are better than fried chicken. Give me a leg, a thigh, or a wing (or any part, frankly) breaded in flour and seasonings then deep-fried, and I'm a happy boy. There may be no other person more associated with fried chicken than Henryville, Indiana native, Harlan Sanders, known around the world as Colonel Sanders, the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), who opened his first restaurant in Laurel County, Kentucky back in 1930 at the age of 40. To celebrate its status as the birthplace of the Colonel's empire, the town of London, Kentucky holds an "egg-citing" (sorry, not sorry) four-day festival to celebrate all things chicken.

Welcome to the World Chicken Festival

Despite living only four hours away in southern Indiana, I had never heard of World Chicken Festival until a friend shared it with me on Facebook. As it turns out, it's been around for a while. It's happened every year since 1990 (with the exception of 2020 when nothing anywhere happened) and takes place during the last full weekend of September. It features many of the same attractions you'll find at most street festivals, live entertainment, carnival rides, food booths, etc. However, it also offers several things you won't find at most street festivals. For example, the "Cluckin', Struttin', and Crowin'" contest where visitors compete for cash prizes by doing their best impression of a chicken.

Of course, the festival would be doing itself a disservice if it didn't celebrate the person who made fried chicken famous which it does by holding a Colonel Sanders look-a-like contest.

But the real centerpiece of the festival is The World's Largest Stainless Steel Skillet. A massive working skillet used by festival volunteers to fry chicken for visitors to enjoy. It measures 10 feet, six inches in diameter, according to the festival's website, weighs around 700 pounds, and requires 300 gallons of oil to fill. It's divided into four equal sections and is capable of frying 600 quarters of chicken at one time.

Is your mouth watering? Just me? Alright, then.

2023 World Chicken Festival Info

This year's event is set for September 21st - 24th (2023) and will feature everything mentioned above along with live entertainment from several musicians including headliners Deanna Carter and 90s alt-rock favorites, Smash Mouth.

As much as I love fried chicken, I'm not sure I'm ready to drive four hours to attend the festival. Although, my son will be a student at Western Kentucky by then and the campus is just a little under two-and-a-half hours from London, so maybe I can make a combo trip out of it. Stop by campus and visit my kid, then enjoy some fried chicken at the festival. Sounds like a win-win to me.

For everything you could possibly want to know about the World Chicken Festival, visit the event's website.

[Sources: KFC / World's Chicken Festival]