Thousands came out to the first “BBQ & Beer Festival,” held in Central Park on Friday, May 6 and Saturday, May 7, which also benefitted the Santa Clarita based nonprofit, Single Mothers Outreach.

“We’re based out of Ventura and we always wanted to do a festival out here,” said Vincenzo Jiammanco, President of the California Beer Festival, the producers of the BBQ & Beer Festival. “Central Park is such an awesome place to have a festival, so we reached out to the city and they said ‘yeah, we’d love to have you,’ so now we’re standing here today and we’re really super stoked to be out here.”

Friday there was BBQ and beer testing, where vendors from across Southern California brought their best beers and bbq samples for hungry festival attendees to munch on.

Saturday, attendees were able to bring the whole family, as there were no food and beer sampling. Four bands took the stage and set the mood for attendees to shop some of the best bbq in California and check out over 30 craft beers on tap.

30% of ticket sales also went to Single Mothers Outreach, a SCV based nonprofit that helps single parents, when festival attendees used a promo code or bought their ticket through the organization.

While cloudy skies and a chance of showers was a concern, the festival was still well attended. Jiammanco said craft beer “sold out” on the craft beer experience Friday, with 3,000 attendees. In the afternoon on Saturday, there was about 5,000 attendees.

The festival’s producers say they hope this is the first of many festivals of this kind that come to SCV.