Minnesota Salsa Fest

Saturday, September 21, 2024
11:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m.

Burlington Northern Park: 100 Aldrich Ave SW Wadena, MN 56482

FREE ADMISSION for FESTIVAL-GOERS!

Come enjoy a salsa contest where you can vote for your favorite salsa, classes and demonstrations, youth craft activities from Art Bar 39, food stands, and Drastic Measures Brewing beer garden.

Information for Vendors and the Salsa/Hot Sauce Contest is below.
Contest entries accepted until midnight on Wednesday, Sept. 18

About Salsa Fest

The Minnesota Salsa Festival is a one-day event held in the waning days of summer since its inception in 2017. Attendees of all ages enjoy an eclectic mix of original and traditional music from regional artists in a festival atmosphere intermixed with numerous artisan and farmer vendors selling their wares and produce.

The Minnesota Salsa Fest works to fulfill our mission of bringing the community together. SFA is excited to continue to build on to the foundation of the event, with the encouragement of our Wadena community partners, for a celebration around what unites us all, food!

Education Sessions by local providers, educators and SFA members:

12:30 PM - 1:15 PM How to make home-made tortillas (Zach Paige of North Circle Seeds)
1:30 PM - 2:15 PM Targeted Goat Grazing (Bryan Simon of Lakeside Prairie Farm)
2:30 PM - 3:15 PM Building scarecrows for your garden and Salsa Fest (Dan Stark of Bannuckburn Farm)
3:30 pm - 4:15 PM Edible Wild Mushrooms and Foraging (Cliff of Cliff's Mushrooms)

Entertainment:

11:00-AM - 2:00 PM DJ Cody Bain
12:00 PM- 1:15 PM Mexico Folklorico Dance Demonstration (by Mexico Azteca) followed by Salsa Dance lessons
1:30 PM - 1:45 PM Mexico Azteca Dance Demonstration followed by Salsa Dance lessons
2:00 PM - 5:00 PM Stearns County Pachanga Society
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM Folk Dance Demonstration by Taste of Colombia
5:00 PM -8 :00 PM Blue Loon Band

More Reasons to Come to Salsa Fest!

Salsa Fest Participant Info:

Be a Vendor!

Harvest time is here. We are celebrating the fruits of your labors at Salsa Fest! 40 Farm Market vendors will be featured at the festival. We commune around food and fun, so Prepared Food Vendors will sustain us throughout the day and evening.

If you would like to be one of our featured Farm Market or Prepared Food Vendors, please complete your applications/registrations as follows:

1. Complete the online registration as completely as possible.

2. Complete this fillable MN-ST19 form: https://www.revenue.state.mn.us/sites/default/files/2011-11/st19.pdf

3. Fill in the Vendor Fine Print/Agreements page: https://tinyurl.com/SF24agreements

4. Email your completed ST19 and Fine print forms to central@sfa-mn.org

Special note: we love our trees and are trying to save them. Digital responses bring us great joy. We recommend downloading the agreeements page to your phone, tablet or computer and using your photo editor to write in your initials, etc. or printing and completing the agreeements page, take a photo and email that photo back with your ST19 form. If you have a favorite PDF filler option, that's great, too!

A Salsa Fest representative will respond to you by email or phone when we have received your application/payment to confirm your spot at Salsa Fest and clarify any questions you may have.

Special note: If you are applying to be a Farm Market or Prepared Food Vendor as well as Salsa Contestant, complete the online registration, ST19 form and Fine Prints page ONCE only. These forms cover both vendor and contestant.

We are doing our best to be digital, but we don't want that to deter anyone. If you prefer to complete a paper application, we have that for you, too!

In English: https://tinyurl.com/SF24vendor

In Spanish: https://tinyurl.com/SF24vendorespanol

Salsa and Hot Sauce Contest!

Hot, spicy, cool, daring, dessert-y? What kind of salsa or hot sauce maker are you? Are you a champion this year? Let's find out. We welcome your entry or entries (mulitiple per maker welcomed) into the 2024 Salsa Fest Salsa and Hot Sauce Contest. Here's how to enter:

1. Complete the online application/registration.

2. A Salsa Fest representative will confirm receipt of your application/registration and follow up with any additional information or signatures needed upon receipt.

Special note: If you are applying to be both Vendor AND Contestant, you need only fill out the online application and additional forms (ST19 and Fine Print/Agreements) once. They cover both.

Home cook? No Cottage Food license or Catering License? Salsa Fest follows the guidelines, best practices and procedures as outlines by these licenses. However, we want to welcome a all contestants. If you are a home cook, a Salsa Fest representative will follow up with you upon receiving your application to gather a bit more information and an additional signature. No worries.

We are doing our best to be digital, but we don't want that to deter anyone. If you prefer to complete a paper applications, we have that for you, too!

In English: https://tinyurl.com/SF24contestant

In Spanish: https://tinyurl.com/SF24contestantespanol

FAQ: Salsa Tasting Contest & Vendors:

- Click HERE for English

- Click HERE for Spanish

Sponsor Salsa Fest!

SFA-MN is grateful for the generous support of our sponsors for our events and our organization. With your generosity, we are better able to connect to our commuities, our producers, our consumers and our neighbors. Of course we benefit from financial support, but we also need connections, in-roads, insight and sometimes even goods or services. (Anyone have a sound system we could use, for example?)

If you or your organization would like to support Salsa Fest or SFA-MN Central, please let us know by emailing Kathleen at central@sfa-mn.org.

We have attached our Salsa Fest Sponsor application for your convenience. https://tinyurl.com/SF24sponsor

We look forward to hearing from you and Thank You!