Tamale Festival called a success by event staff

The first-ever Diboll Tamale Festival was a qualified success, with an estimated 3,000 people showing up for the two days of festivities.

"We're being pleased with it," Lance Moore, civic center director, said Monday morning. Eight vendors from the festival already have expressed plans to come back next year.

The biggest problem at the festival was not enough tamales. Saturday's supply was sold out before noon. What happened was some cognitive dissonance between supply and demand.

People were buying 10 dozen and more at a time, Moore said, and the vendors were simply not prepared for that kind of demand. One man Sunday ordered 17 dozen.

"Nobody was prepared to sell that many that fast," Moore said. "Nobody was buying a dozen and going to sit down to eat them, and coming back for another dozen," he said, which was what the vendors anticipated. Customers brought ice chests and bought the large quantities.

One vendor sold 146 dozen tamales in two hours after the festival opened Saturday, he said. She came back with 200 dozen Sunday and sold out again in about 45 minutes, he said. She wound up making about $2,200 for her weekend.

Nikki Capps and her daughter Taylor enjoy their ride on the super-big slide, while visiting the Tamale Festival last weekend and Huaria Sanchez cooks up her mother's famous tamales for a cooking class where many learned the secrets of spiced meat and husk folding.

All the tamale vendors "will come back next year, and they will be prepared," Moore said.

Vendors were inside the civic center selling everything from wedding gowns to candles to glass bird feeders and from their positive reaction to coming back next year, they seem to have done well.

Moore said he was aware of visitors from places including Tyler, Katy and Galveston.

Crowds throughout the weekend were not overwhelming, but were constant. Carnival rides were never extremely busy but were in steady use. He did not yet know how well the carnival operator did.

Financially, Moore thinks the festival at least broke even, but had not had a chance by Monday morning to break down the numbers.

"We weren't trying to make money. We just didn't want to lose a lot."