By Delayna Earley
The Island News
If the breeze coming off the river smells a little like hickory this weekend, you’re not imagining it.
It’s Bands Brews & BBQ time again, which means downtown Port Royal’s Paris Avenue will fill with smokers, folding chairs, guitar riffs and the slow, happy migration of people moving from tent to tent with tickets in one hand and napkins in the other.
Now in its 15th year, the festival has become one of Port Royal’s most reliable signs that winter is loosening its grip.
You may still need a jacket, but you’ll also need an appetite.
Sanctioned by the South Carolina Barbecue Association, the competition draws cook teams from across the Southeast while raising money for the Zonta Club of Beaufort — the club’s biggest fundraising event of the year.
“It’s a big effort … it’s a fun event … family oriented,” said Zonta Club president Marie Collett-Larson in a previousThe Island News report on the festival’s return after a leadership transition. “We hope that everybody has a great time.”
This is the second year that the Zonta Club of Beaufort has hosted the event.
Friday night: a wing-powered kickoff
The weekend opens Friday, Feb. 13, with the Wing Throw Down from 6 to 9 p.m., a roaming tasting event that doubles as a preview of the pitmasters’ competitive spirit.
For a dollar a ticket, visitors can sample everything from traditional Buffalo to sticky, sweet heat experiments. Some teams guard their recipes; others happily talk shop.
Live music from the Parris Island Marine Band, along with Rick Rudd, provides the soundtrack as families, date nights and groups of friends cluster around high-top tables and compare notes.
Veterans of past festivals will tell you the wings event feels like a warm-up party — the sort where you keep bumping into people you didn’t expect to see.
Saturday: smoke in the air, music in the street
By late Saturday morning, the avenue hums. From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., barbecue takes center stage.
Teams tend their smokers while Flat Silly and other performers rotate through, giving the crowd plenty of reasons to linger between bites.
Food trucks round out the options, though purists might argue that’s beside the point.
For competitors, the day builds toward the 3:30 p.m. awards ceremony, when more than $5,000 in prize money is handed out.
First place for barbecue butts earns $1,500, and top wings claim $500.
Then there’s the Hometown Heroes award — $500 — and, perhaps more coveted, yearlong bragging rights.
Why people come back
There’s something about standing in the middle of the street, live music echoing, smoke curling into the afternoon sky, that makes strangers chat like neighbors.
For some, it’s tradition: a way to gather in February when otherwise there’s not much on the calendar to bring the community together downtown. For others, it’s a chance to discover new takes on old favorites — and meet the people behind the pits.
And for the Zonta Club volunteers who coordinate it all, the payoff is simple: seeing that crowd turn out, sharing food and conversation when winter starts to loosen its grip again.
Volunteers are still being recruited to help make the festival happen Feb. 13–14, according to recent Zonta Club posts encouraging community members to lend a hand.
Delayna Earley, who joined The Island News in 2022, formerly worked as a photojournalist for The Island Packet/The Beaufort Gazette, as well as newspapers in Indiana and Virginia. She can be reached at delayna.theislandnews@gmail.com.