VeggieFest Chicago 2010

Who: VN Publisher Joseph Connelly, VN Associate Publisher Colleen Holland, VN Trade Show Manager Lyndsay Orwig

What: Largest free vegetarian food festival in the US
Where: Naperville, Ill.
When: August 7–8, 2010
Why: Beware Boston. Move over Toronto. There's a new festival on the block.

The Scoop: A century after Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle immortalized the stockyards of Chicago, in an affluent suburb 30 miles to the west and in the shadow of McDonald’s Hamburger University, a small vegetarian festival began in 2005, attended by a few thousand believers. Science of Spirituality, a non-profit multi-faith organization that adheres to a vegetarian diet, started VeggieFest Chicago as a way of promoting its meat-free lifestyle to the community, one tenet of the international organization’s mission. Fast-forward five years. If you are unsure that the veg lifestyle has caught fire, or doubt that the beginning of critical mass for vegetarianism is upon us, you weren’t in Naperville, Ill., this past weekend.

Dozens of inspirational quotations lined the grounds at VeggieFest

VeggieFest is a free, two-day, outdoor festival that hits all the right notes. There's the rhythmic music that plays all day; the ample food court with delicious, moderately priced multi-ethic cuisine; the nearly 100 educators and exhibitors ranging from Mercy for Animals and Conscious Planet Media to Clif Bar, Sequel Naturals, and The Book Publishing Company; children's activities all day long; and the lectures and cooking demos which this year included Sarah Taylor, author of Vegan in 30 Days (* see below to win a signed copy) as well as two keynotes from Sant Rajinder Singh, founder of the Science of Spirituality.

Everyone loved VegNews!

Under mostly hot and sunny skies more than 20,000 people from as far Seattle to Boston, Quebec to Florida, strolled through the always crowded fairgrounds, soaking up food and info as fast as it could be served. VegNews even imported the crackerjack sales team of Randy and Bev Orwig (Lyndsay's parents) from St. Louis to assist us on Saturday, when we sold a record number of subscriptions in a single day.

Author Sarah Taylor flanked by Randy and Bev Orwig, subscription-selling superstars

VeggieFest Chicago is reaching a new audience through a successful combination of open outreach, enjoyable entertainment, a welcoming attitude, and a wonderfully supportive vibe. Hundreds of volunteers pitched in for months before the event, and then for two very long days, to pull off a festival that needs to be on every vegetarian's map.

Proud vegan attendee Nicole Hughes with event organizer Jay Mooney

* Press Pass Bonus: Leave a comment telling us about your favorite veg festival. We'll pick one winner this Friday, August 13 and send you a signed copy of Vegan in 30 Days.

Green (Festival) Day

Who: VN Editorial Director Aurelia d'Andrea + a couple o' colleagues

What: A day at the San Francisco Green Festival + and a post-fest evening on the town

When: Saturday, November 15

Where: South of Market district, San Francisco

Why: For work + for play

The Scoop: I like the Green Festival. It's a fun opportunity to taste a ton of new "green" food and drink (the elderflower kombucha by Kombucha Botanica is my new favorite), to get to meet and greet fellow green-media folk, to become acquainted with green conservation leaders, and to learn more about such things as socially responsible investing, renewable energy, and green technology. Never mind that there was maybe a little too much patchouli oil floating around, that I probably ate way more than my fair share of Clif bar samples, and that I spent more time working when I really wanted to be eating even more samples. It was still loads of fun, and not just because I also got to see a lot of friends and acquaintances who popped by our booth to say hi.

Lyndsay Orwig and Aurelia d'Andrea workin' it at the VN booth

This year, I was paired up with Lyndsay Orwig, VegNews' editorial-intern-turned-office-manager, to work the Saturday afternoon shift at our swanky double-wide booth. Together, we busted our behinds selling subscriptions, fielding queries, and distributing free copies of our current issue. After several hours-worth of shilling for a good cause—and for enduring an hour or more of tantric dance maneuvers provided by some random attendees who thought the space in front of our booth would make an ideal "stage"—we figured we earned the right to relax and have fun.

After retrieving my bike from the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition's valet parking station, Lyndsay and I headed toward 7th and Folsom Streets to Brainwash, a cafe-slash-laundromat, where Cult of Sue Todd—one of the many bands featured in our July+August Music issue—was scheduled to perform. When we got there, we didn't yet see anyone we knew, so we decided to pop in next door to Terroir, which totally resembled this place in my old Paris neighborhood that I adored, and which, therefore, led me to assume it would be a cozy wine bar. It was, but it wasn't until we'd committed to a glass that we noticed the not-very-vegan-friendly menu. I won't tell you what was on it, except to say that it included animal parts that many in the animal-rights movement are fighting to ban the production of. Oh well. Now I know.

As soon as we'd polished off our Malbec, we headed back over to Brainwash where VN Editor-at-Large Jennifer Pickens awaited us, as did The Traveling Vegetarian Yvonne Smith, VN Volunteer Extraordinaire Paul Saccone, and a few other friends we hadn't seen in a while. I was starving at this point, so after perusing the menu, I decided on a big ol' plate of French fries. Nothing like a spot of grease after all those healthy Green Festival nibbles. They were really tasty, by the way, especially when dunked into barbecue sauce. Yum!

Yvonne Smith, Paul Saccone, and Jennifer Pickens do "cool" like nobody's business

After rocking out to such classic Cult of Sue Todd hits as "Closer" and "Tampa," the band busted out a stellar rendition of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'." Even if you, like me, were never a fan of San Francisco's most famous musical hometown heroes, maybe you just couldn't help but wish you had a lighter to flick in the air for this one. When the musical segment of the evening ended, the motley lot of us migrated across the street to a really funky restaurant/bar/swing-goth dance club (really) that just isn't worth mentioning the name of, but let's just say the ambience didn't matter as much as getting to hang out with a cool gang of veggies for one warm November evening.