120,000 people attended BottleRock this year. Here’s what happens to all the leftover food

Now that another BottleRock Napa Valley is in the books, how many people attended the three-day festival and, perhaps more importantly, where does all the extra food from the festival’s vendors and restaurants go?

Organizers didn’t specify how many tickets were sold for the festival’s 11th outing this year, but said an estimated 120,000 festivalgoers attended the festival, according to Tom Fuller, a spokesperson for BottleRock.

This means about 40,000 attendees per day were able to enjoy memorable performances from the lengthy slate of daily performers, including headliners Stevie Nicks, Pearl Jam and Ed Sheeran.

Like in most years, tickets quickly sold-out on the festival’s website in January not long after they were announced. But there were still some tickets available via third-party vendors who had bought up tickets to then resell.

First held in 2013, the festival was canceled in 2020 and delayed in 2021 due to the pandemic. When it returned in early September that year, it sold-out to a crowd of 120,000 over three days. Nicks canceled her appearance that year but this year made good on her promise to return.

While BottleRock is done for another year, its venue, the Napa Valley Expo, still has another big weekend ahead with Festival La Onda, the new two-day Latin music festival from BottleRock’s founders.

Among the organizers scurrying about at the site Monday were 20 volunteers from Feeding It Forward, who helped load carts with food that wasn’t eaten over the weekend.

“It’s a huge undertaking,” said Margaret Perry, the executive director of Feeding It Forward. “There are carts all over.”

BottleRock, which organizers describe as one of the most sustainable festivals, collaborates with the food donation organization to reduce food waste and alleviate hunger in Napa County. The festival provides the nonprofit with refrigerators for safe food storage and golf carts for easy food transportation.

All the food collected and sorted was then distributed Tuesday to 22 community food organizations, from food pantries to community housing, at CrossWalk Community Church on First Street.

The uneaten food amounted to over 3,000 pounds, according to Perry, and that number will grow after La Onda, which will also utilize the food donation process.

“This is the first year the food is getting split up,” said Perry. “Next weekend’s recovery will probably be larger.”

After last year’s BottleRock, over 13,500 pounds of leftover food was donated and redistributed to various organizations serving Napa County.

“The community really benefits in a huge way,” Perry said.