HOPE, Ark. - Despite rain on its final day, the Hope Watermelon Festival is rocking its 50th year.
The Hope Watermelon Festival Organizer, Christy Burns, said their most popular events are always the watermelon-eating contest and the watermelon seed-spitting contest.
In addition to the watermelon-eating contest, the event had a politically correct watermelon-eating contest that included anyone who is an elected official or is running for office.
"For today we are rounding out the 50th Annual Hope Watermelon Festival, this year is our golden jubilee year, that is our theme; this is Saturday, our final day of the festival, we still have tons going on though, so our vendors, our food trucks and vendors are still open out here, our kids zone is still open," said Festival Organizer Christy Burns. "There is still a little bit of drizzle going on; our arm wrestling is actually happening on our Farmers Bank and Trust stage, and we're just waiting, rounding down to our finale, which is our big concert this evening with May Estes opening and Gretchen Wilson following for our headliner."
Burns has organized the three-day event for the last five years, and this year has been the most tickets sold, with an estimated 30,000 festival-goers over Thursday through Saturday.