31-year Hillsborough tradition ends

This year, fans of Hillsborough’s annual Hogg Day festival will have to look elsewhere for freshly cooked barbecue, live music and antique car shows.

The Hillsborough/Orange County Chamber of Commerce announced last week it will no longer organize the festival.

This would have been Hillsborough’s 32nd year hosting the festival.

According to a press release from the chamber on Thursday, Hogg Day began as an Independence Day celebration and fundraiser for the chamber before it was moved to earlier in the year.

The chamber’s Board of Directors decided that the Hogg Day festival was not the best way to utilize staff and volunteer time, said Jason Richmond, president of the board, in the press release.

Margaret Cannell, executive director of the chamber, also said she thought the festival was not in line with the goals of the chamber.

“The chamber is a membership organization with the mission to promote economic growth for members and business committees,” Cannell said.

“We felt as though Hogg Day was not a part of that mission.”

Cannell said as many as 20,000 people usually attended the festival during the 1 1/2-day event.

But the 2013 festival attracted only 12,000 people to Hillsborough.

It takes the Chamber about six months to plan the festival.

“We’ve had some talk about the cancellation and people are disappointed,” Cannell said.

“But we hope to help some other organization if they want to put it on.”

Hillsborough Mayor Tom Stevens said he thinks town residents and travelers who have attended the past Hogg Day festivals will miss the diverse atmosphere that brought so many people together.

“The festival meant a lot of things to a lot of different people,” he said.

The annual barbecue contest is one of the most memorable festival activities for Stevens. People would have a cook-off contest, after which all the barbecue was brought together and sold by the chamber as a fundraiser, he said.

Stevens said there have been plenty of comments on social media from people who are both understanding and distressed about the chamber’s decision to cancel Hogg Day.

But he said the things that attracted people to the festival are still alive in Hillsborough, even in the absence of the event.

“There will be a lot of people who will miss Hogg Day, but there’s so much to do in Hillsborough every day,” he said.

“We still have great barbecue, a range of inexpensive to expensive restaurants, great music venues and a deep appreciation for history and art.”

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