Turkey Testicle Festival is on Many "Two-Do" Lists

Perhaps it’s a sign of just how popular the annual Turkey Testicle Festival has become.

“A customer last night, actually it was my last customer of the evening, said he has somebody coming in from Sweden who wants to get a T-shirt,” said Parkside Pub co-owner and fest organizer Jeff Lovell. “As far as I know, he’s coming the farthest.”

Entering its 29th go-round, this year’s Turkey Testicle Festival is expected to challenge last year’s record-breaking turnout when it gets the ball rolling at 11 a.m., Wednesday, Nov. 23 at the pub located at 11721 E. Main Street in Huntley. An estimated 4,200 people attended last year’s event.

“This is our Super Bowl, World Series and Olympics,” said Lovell, a Huntley resident who, with fellow pub owner Mark Weishaar, expects to serve 1,000 pounds of turkey testicles during the one-day event benefiting several local non-profits and youth programs including the Huntley Jaycees and Huntley Lions Club as well as Huntley baseball, wrestling and football groups. Admission is $10 per person with the battered and fried turkey testicles sold and served separately.

“There are Nut Girls walking around,” said Lovell of the wait staff. “They’re officially Nut Girls.”

Festivalgoers, whom Lovell says prefer their turkey testicles with Tabasco sauce to ranch dressing, can purchase drink tickets. Also, live music will be provided throughout the day by HairDaze, Aunt Janet Band, Liberty’s Teeth, He Said She Said, and headliner, 7th Heaven.

Raised in Carpentersville, Lovell says he’s attended 10 testicle festivals and that one of the pub’s previous owners started the fest as a joke.

“There was probably a couple dozen people at the first one, 50 at the second, 100 hundred at the third,” said Lovell, who admits the fest factored into his decision to purchase the pub with Weishaar three years ago. “Now it’s the beast that it is.”

As for the festival’s enduring success, Lovell says the answer is simple.

“It used to be more of a unique idea, (but) more and more people are trying it and more festivals are trying it,” he said. “As far as the Huntley ones goes, it seems to be – especially with the college kids back in town – like a reunion. You’ll see the same people every year and you might not see them for another year. On (the day of the fest) we have less regulars than anybody. Of the 4,200, there are probably 4,000 people that I don’t see except for the fest.”

A visitor from Sweden will make one more, and the fact he or she wants to buy a Turkey Testicle Festival T-shirt, well, that just fits right in with the pub’s short–term plans.

“We want to put together a collage of people wearing our apparel in front of The Hoover Dam or something else significant,” Lovell said. “And we’re going to start that after this year.”

Because parking will be hard to come by the day of the fest, Lovell is encouraging everyone to use free shuttle buses or discounted taxi and towing services.