By Dani Tietz
The 2023 Mahomet Soda Fest is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on June 10.
The event, hosted by the Mahomet Chamber of Commerce, will feature over 100 soda flavors along Main Street in downtown Mahomet. In its third year, the Mahomet Soda Fest will also feature performances by The Hood Family Band, Jake & Jackson. Local food trucks including Ice Daddy’s, Main Scoop, LaPaloma, Mamma D’s Smokehouse, Flour and Fire Pizza, Brien’s Bistro, Juanita’s Tacos, and Chopped alongside about 20 craft vendors selling various will have items for sale.
Organizers hope the atmosphere is one that will keep festival-goers around long enough to try flavors like a hot ginger ale to Bug Juice to Zombie Brain.
The family-friendly event will also feature a free kid’s area with bounce houses, obstacle courses, games, a face painter and a trackless train.
“You don’t have to pay to come to the Soda Fest,” organizer Nick Schneider said. “You can just walk around. You can’t taste sodas for free, but you can walk around, you can enjoy the music, you can enjoy the kid stuff. You don’t pay anything for any of that.”
There will be a few ways to enjoy sodas. Visitors can purchase wristbands for unlimited drinks or tickets to choose a variety of flavors. After favorites are chosen, guests can purchase bottles to take home. In the months after the 2023 festival, the Main Scoop, a Soda Fest sponsor, will have varieties available at 403 E Main St.
Like many other things, COVID changed the way craft soda vendors participate in festivals, like the Mahomet Soda Fest. Schneider wasn’t sure which vendors might show up this year, but he did say that local volunteers would power the event by distributing sodas from places like Indianapolis and Minnesota.
Craft sodas that have stood out in the past include an orange-colored soda that tastes like grape and vintage sodas like “Moxie” that remind people of their time in the Northeast.
Schneider said that although the first two years of the festival were held under some COVID-19 mitigations, last year’s crowd drew about 4,000 people.
“We’ve had great weather the first two so hopefully we have great weather this year too,” he added. “We have about 4000 people downtown enjoying the day, the festivities, listening to music, and tasting all sorts of sodas. It brings quite a few people to town.”
Businesses at Wes Park and Sangamon on Main will be open during the festival. Downtown parking will be open on side streets.
Schneider said the Soda Fest committee is still looking for sponsors to join Main Scoop and Subway. If anyone is interested contact Jennifer Cougill at jennifer@mahometchamberofcommerce.com.
