Our News is Written in Stone™

James Maddox

The Marietta Register

The Lafayette Hotel has been a staple in the downtown community for nearly a century, providing entertainment to both tourists and locals for ninety years, so it’s only fitting that a growing tradition sprout up on the hotel grounds.

This year marks the fourth annual Marietta Wing Thing, which is again set to be located in the Lafayette Hotel parking lot on Sat., July 5.

Attendees of last year’s Wing Thing know that the event is filled with fun, games, and, best of all, food.

With Marietta’s Wing Thing, Kelly Blazosky, Washington County Convention and Visitor’s Bureau Executive Director, says they’ve created a good quality event that will work with the Red, White and Blues Festival to keep people in town for the entire weekend.

Sponsored by Energizer, Clear Channel, and the CVB, among many others, the Wing Thing has certainly made its mark as a Marietta summer favorite.

“Last year, we took in over 840 people through the gates,” says Blazosky.

The Wing Thing has become so successful that this year Blazosky says that they’re expecting an even larger turnout for their fourth year, and that participating restaurants have arranged to fix around 15,500 wings for the event.

To help these restaurants with the costs of taking part in the Wing Thing, and as a way of saying thanks and encouraging further activity from the business community, the CVB has decided to initiate a $1 rebate for every ticket turned in at a participant’s tent.

“These are the same restaurants we are going to in our area, and we want to help them out,” says Blazosky.

Several contests are in place to recognize the best of the best wing cooks. Among them is the Best Original Wing and the People’s Choice Award.

The Wing Thing will also include such events as Chicken Bingo and the famed wing eating contest. Judges for the contests and participants for the eating contest will be chosen from the community, with an additional two eating contest competitors selected through Clear Channel radio announcements before the event.

Food isn’t the only draw of Marietta’s Wing Thing. The Code Blue Band will be providing music from their 6^th studio release Tight at Midnight. Always good for a rockin’ time, the Code Blue Band mixes different genres of music with a foundation of blues, but primarily they say they are musicians who play songs that contain energy.

The Wing Thing is set to kick off on July 5 at 6 p.m. Admission to the event is $10 per person, which includes tickets to sample wings and side dishes. Budweiser products, water, and soft drinks are sold separately.

According to Blazosky, the CVB will be using proceeds from the Wing Thing to further promote Marietta and Washington County as a travel and tourist destination, so come out and enjoy the fun while supporting the wonderful events of the area.