Fulton County Georgia Atlanta Food and Wine Festival
Atlanta’s signature culinary gathering is a ticketed, four-day celebration of Southern cooking that has crossed the city as it has grown. The event is published most often as the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival, printed with an ampersand, although some news and listing layers spell the name out in full as the Atlanta Food and Wine Festival, and shorter references compress it to AF&WF or AFWF. It unfolds in Atlanta, the Fulton County seat, and its documented span runs from a first held festival in 2011 through a sixteenth annual edition staged in September 2026. Across those years the festival has changed owners, changed neighbourhoods, and survived one season in which it could not gather in person at all. Its centrepiece has never changed: the tasting tents, where ticket holders graze through the cooking of chefs drawn from across the South and beyond. Its recent editions have settled into September, a long migration from the late-spring slot where the documented record begins.
About the Festival
Local magazine layers credit the festival’s creation to cofounders Elizabeth Feichter and Dominique Love. In 2019 the event company Agency 21 acquired the festival, and one organiser-derived layer names Brett Friedman as that company’s chief executive. The 2026 edition travelled under the billing Atlanta Food & Wine Festival presented by Invesco QQQ, a form carried by destination-marketing and news layers; that wording is a sponsor billing, and no layer gathered credits the sponsor with running the event. Readers should keep three roles separate in their minds: the cofounders who created the festival, the company that has owned it since 2019, and the sponsor whose name rode on the 2026 presentation. The distinction matters because the festival’s venues shifted alongside its ownership, and the layers never merge those eras into one tidy account. What every era shares is the format: a ticketed programme built around tasting tents, demonstrations, and separately sold special events.
Quick Facts
| Detail | What the record shows |
| Published name | Atlanta Food & Wine Festival; also printed in full as Atlanta Food and Wine Festival |
| Short form | AF&WF, also printed AFWF |
| Setting | Atlanta, the Fulton County seat, in Georgia |
| Presenting billing, 2026 | Atlanta Food & Wine Festival presented by Invesco QQQ; a sponsor billing, not an organiser |
| Ownership | Cofounded by Elizabeth Feichter and Dominique Love; acquired by Agency 21 in 2019 |
| Founding and debut | One 2026 layer states a 2010 founding; the first held festival was in 2011 |
| Latest documented edition | The sixteenth annual, September 10 to 13, 2026 |
| Current venue | The Home Depot Backyard, downtown beside the stadium; no street address is printed in the layers gathered |
| Admission | Ticketed in every era; no free general admission is published anywhere in the record |
| Age rule | Attendees must be twenty-one or older, per the 2026 layers |
History
A 2026 industry-magazine layer states the origin with the words “since its 2010 founding”, and 2010 is recorded here as that layer’s stated founding year. The first festival actually held belongs to 2011: a 2013 magazine layer, looking back, records five thousand eight hundred attendees who showed up in 2011 as its first-year comparison figure. The two statements stand side by side rather than smoothed into a single date, because the layers themselves keep the founding and the debut a year apart.
In its early era the festival lived in Midtown. The edition of May 30 to June 2, 2013 placed classes at and near the Loews Atlanta Hotel, and through the years from 2013 to 2018 the learning experiences sat at that hotel while the tasting tents stood in Piedmont Park near the Legacy Fountain. The festival was acquired by Agency 21 in 2019, and the edition of May 30 to June 2 that year, billed the ninth annual, moved the tasting tents to Historic Fourth Ward Park for the first time.
The tenth annual edition was planned for May 2020 and was postponed when the pandemic closed public gatherings. The festival reimagined it as a virtual edition billed AF&WF At Home Edition presented by Publix, running from September 10 to September 19, 2020; that billing was a one-off edition name, never the festival’s own name. The in-person return came from September 9 to September 12, 2021, in condensed form at Historic Fourth Ward Park under Agency 21. The edition of September 15 to 18, 2022 was billed the eleventh year. That billing sits oddly against the sequence around it, ninth annual in 2019 and tenth annual in 2020, and it is recorded unmerged rather than reconciled into a clean count. The layers gathered do not detail editions for 2023, 2024 or 2025 at all, and that gap is left open here rather than filled in. The documented record resumes with the sixteenth annual edition, held from September 10 to September 13, 2026 at The Home Depot Backyard, arranged as four themed days hosted by named chefs and personalities.
For a useful comparison, see the Fulton County Georgia Atlanta Dogwood Festival for another county festival.
What to Expect
The tasting tents are the cornerstone in every era the layers describe, and everything else is arranged around them. Learning experiences and culinary demonstrations were hotel-based and cost extra before 2021; from 2021 onward, magazine layers describe them folded into the tasting tents themselves. Individual dinners, classes and VIP events remain separately ticketed components in all eras, so a tasting-tent ticket has never, in these layers, been a pass to everything carrying the festival’s name.
The 2026 edition organised its four days under themes: The Atlanta Standard, Flavors of Atlanta, The Southern Spread, and The Homecoming, with live-fire grills, burger battles and marching bands woven through the programme, according to destination-marketing and industry-magazine layers. The destination-marketing layer also presents those themed days as hosted by named chefs and personalities, giving each day a public face rather than leaving the schedule anonymous. A news layer counts more than one hundred chefs in the 2026 edition. A listing layer’s generic description of the festival speaks instead of more than two hundred celebrated chefs. Those figures come from different layers describing different things, and they are left unmerged here rather than combined into a single headcount.
Planning Your Visit
Every era of this festival has been ticketed, and no layer gathered publishes a free general admission, so tickets are the starting assumption for any visit. The clearest prices in the record belong to 2021, when a local magazine layer printed tasting-tent tickets at one hundred fifty dollars for one day or two hundred seventy-five dollars for two days, with a scheduled price rise noted at the time. Those figures are fenced to 2021 and should not be carried forward. For 2026, destination-marketing and news layers describe individual event tickets and multi-day passes sold through the festival’s own channels, and they set an age rule: attendees must be twenty-one or older. No single 2026 gate price is printed in the layers gathered, and that gap is stated plainly here rather than papered over with older numbers.
Aim your travel at The Home Depot Backyard, the downtown venue beside the stadium named by the 2026 layers. No street address for the current venue is printed in the layers gathered, so none is supplied here. If an older guide steers you toward Piedmont Park or Historic Fourth Ward Park, check its year before you follow it, because both belong to earlier eras of the festival. Build the separately ticketed pieces into the plan early, since the dinners, classes and VIP events run on their own ticketing in every era and answer to their own availability rather than to your general entry.
Four Days in the Shape of the 2026 Edition
The 2026 programme suggests a rhythm worth copying. Give the opening day to The Atlanta Standard, grazing the tasting tents while they are fresh and sitting in on a demonstration or two now that demonstrations ride inside the tents. Let the second day, Flavors of Atlanta, carry your one separately ticketed dinner, booked on its own terms. Spend the third day, The Southern Spread, around the live-fire grills and the burger battles, returning to favourite tents for second tastes. Close with The Homecoming on the final day, when marching bands thread the grounds and the tents empty at a gentler pace. Across all four days, keep identification proving your age close at hand, because the twenty-one-and-over rule shapes every pour.
One Name, Several Different Festivals
Food and wine festivals dot the South, and the shared formula invites confusion. The Savannah Food & Wine Festival belongs to Chatham County and the Georgia coast; it is a different event in a different city, and nothing about its editions should be read across to Atlanta. Other Southern food-and-wine gatherings likewise share a format, not an identity, with this festival. The reverse mistake also happens: the At Home Edition of 2020 is sometimes spoken of as though it were a spin-off that replaced the original. It was nothing of the kind. It was this festival’s own tenth annual edition, held in virtual form because gathering was impossible, and it belongs inside this festival’s history rather than beside it.
Your Festival Checklist
- Buy tasting-tent tickets or a multi-day pass ahead of time, since entry has been ticketed in every era.
- Carry identification that proves you are twenty-one or older, the age rule the 2026 layers publish.
- Refuse to budget from the 2021 prices, because the record prints no single gate price for 2026.
- Treat individual dinners, classes and VIP events as separate purchases on top of general entry.
- Head for The Home Depot Backyard downtown beside the stadium, the venue the 2026 layers name.
- Ignore any street address a stranger supplies for the current grounds, as the layers print none.
- Check the year on any guide that sends you to Piedmont Park or Historic Fourth Ward Park.
- Spread your tasting across all four themed days instead of crowding everything into one afternoon.
Beyond the Tasting Tents
The festival’s addresses tell a small story about Atlanta itself. Its first era belonged to Midtown, between a grand hotel’s classrooms and the lawns of Piedmont Park. Its middle years settled into Historic Fourth Ward Park, on the city’s east side. Its latest edition stands downtown beside the stadium, in a backyard built for crowds already gathering for sport. A visitor who follows the festival across those eras ends up touring the city’s own gathering places, which is part of the pleasure of returning year after year. Atlanta, as the Fulton County seat, layers government, commerce and celebration into the same streets, and the festival has borrowed a different slice of that mixture in each of its homes.
Why This Festival Matters
Few Southern food festivals have been documented as continuously, or as candidly, as this one. A magazine layer reports five thousand eight hundred attendees in 2011 and seven thousand in 2012, with nearly nine thousand expected in 2013; those are reported figures and an expectation, preserved here with their labels intact. For 2026, an industry-magazine layer relaying the organiser’s wrap-up speaks of ten thousand guests, which makes it an organiser-reported figure rather than an independent count. Even the counting is candidly imperfect, since the eleventh-year billing hung on 2022 does not slot neatly after the ninth and tenth annual billings that precede it. Even with every label honoured, the arc is plain: a first-year crowd in the thousands became a five-figure gathering that survived a change of ownership, three homes, and a year when it existed only on screens. Its record, quirks and all, is the biography of a festival that outlasted its own disruptions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do the sources place the beginning in both 2010 and 2011?
Because they are describing two different moments. An industry-magazine layer from 2026 dates the founding to 2010, while a magazine layer from 2013 treats the festival held in 2011 as the first year and counts its crowd accordingly. This article records the founding as the later layer states it and the debut as the earlier layer documents it, without forcing the two into agreement.
Who organises the festival, given the company name attached to the 2026 billing?
The festival was cofounded by Elizabeth Feichter and Dominique Love and was acquired in 2019 by the event company Agency 21. The name Invesco QQQ appears in the 2026 billing as a presenter, which the destination-marketing and news layers frame as sponsorship. Sponsorship is not organisation, and no layer gathered hands the sponsor the running of the event.
Can the published 2021 ticket prices guide a budget for the newest edition?
No. The one hundred fifty dollar and two hundred seventy-five dollar tasting-tent figures were printed in August 2021, alongside a warning that prices were scheduled to rise. The 2026 layers describe individual event tickets and multi-day passes without printing one gate price, so the honest budget note is that the current figure must be checked at the point of sale.
Was the At Home Edition a separate festival that took this one’s place?
No. It was the tenth annual edition of this same festival, planned for May 2020, postponed, and restaged virtually from September 10 to September 19, 2020 under a one-off billing. It never happened in person, and it neither replaced nor spun off from the festival whose history it sits inside.
What to Expect From the Next Fulton County Georgia Atlanta Food and Wine Festival
How often is Fulton County Georgia Atlanta Food and Wine Festival held?
The billings march in an annual sequence across the record, from the ninth annual in 2019 through the tenth annual in 2020 to the sixteenth annual in 2026. One of those editions, the 2020 gathering, happened virtually rather than in person. The layers gathered leave 2023, 2024 and 2025 undetailed, so the annual pattern is documented at its ends rather than proven for every single year between.
When is the next Fulton County Georgia Atlanta Food and Wine Festival?
No organiser-announced future date appears in the record gathered for this article. The latest documented edition is the sixteenth annual, held from September 10 to September 13, 2026, and anything beyond that point remains unannounced in these layers. A date repeated by a listing or a guide should be treated as unconfirmed until the organiser publishes one.
Will the dates change?
They already have, repeatedly. The festival’s early editions ran in late May and early June, the pandemic pushed the 2020 edition into a virtual September, and the documented modern editions sit in September. With that history behind it, no future slot should be assumed fixed merely because September has become the recent habit.
Atlanta’s tasting tents have already survived new owners, new grounds and a year behind glass. Whenever the next edition is announced, it will arrive carrying a record that this article has tried to keep exactly as tangled, and exactly as honest, as the layers left it.
