Following the success of last year’s Hoagiefest, Wawa is rolling out the campaign for the second year in a row.
Wawa, which operates 570 c-stores in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia., will be hosting four Hoagiefest events this summer in Philadelphia, Ocean City, Md., Virginia Beach and Egg Harbor Township, N.J.
These one-day 1960s-inspired festivals were created to pay tribute to the hoagie, bringing together hoagie fans across the region to celebrate their love of Wawa and commemorate a summer of peace, savings and Shortis.
Attendees will be singing and dancing to original Hoagiefest songs and touring an exhibit featuring imagery and photos of famous hoagie moments in history. In addition, the Hoagiefest tour will feature a mile of Wawa Hoagies served free throughout the four stops. That’s a one-fourth of a mile long hoagie at each event.
Hoagiefest features an array of activities for attendees to enjoy, including the Hoagiefest Morning Build when Wawa Associates create the one-fourth mile long Hoagie to serve to the crowd later that day. Hundreds of pounds of ingredients will be featured as dozens of associates begin building the Hoagiefest feast at 5:30 a.m., in the stores on the site of the Hoagiefest events. The Hoagiefest feast will be loaded onto a refrigerated truck to serve to attendees free later that day.
Howard Stoeckel, Wawa’s president and CEO, will officially kick off each Hoagiefest event with words about Wawa’s great hoagie tradition. And at the close of each event, associates will bury a Hoagie Time Capsule filled with Hoagies as well as other meaningful Wawa items.
“Woodstock is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, and Wawa is celebrating the 45th anniversary of our very first store in 1964, so a 1960s theme is a perfect fit for Hoagiefest,” Stoeckel said. “Just as we have since the 1960’s, we create all of our products with the passion and love we feel for our company and our food. The time capsule is a way for us to reflect the importance of this occasion and capture this feeling for generations to come.”
Other events will include a Kara-hoagie contest, where contestants sing a hoagie karaoke song in the hopes of winning a month’s supply of Hoagies.
Local police officers, firefighters and other key community heroes will participate in a hoagie eating competition relay where two teams of four will compete to see which team can eat the four featured Hoagiefest Shorti Hoagie varieties in the fastest amount of time and then cross the finish line. Wawa will make a charitable donation on behalf of each team, to the community cause of their choice.
Each Hoagiefest event will feature exciting giveaways, including Hoagiefest t-shirts, bumper stickers and CD’s of Hoagiefest music, as well as other exciting prizes.
Alongside Hoagiefest will run special price promotions and events. From June 1 to July 26, a different Wawa Shorti will be featured every two weeks for just $2.99. Wawa also has created a microsite, completely dedicated to Hoagiesfest. Hoagiefest is going on in all of Wawa’s stores through July 26th.
“We’re thrilled to host our second annual Hoagiefest campaign. It’s a way to thank our associates and customers for the unconditional love imbued in the building and eating of every single Hoagie made in our stores,” Stoeckel said. “It’s all about bringing our customers their favorite hoagies at an incredible value, in a time when reasonable prices matter most.”