It’s the Super Bowl of cornhole, and it’s happening in Ventura County this weekend. Cornhole is the popular backyard game where you try to throw a sack filled with corn through a hole in a board. Tens of thousands of people are expected to attend the Throw Down Cornhole Festival & Truck Show at the Ventura County Fairgrounds.
“What makes cornhole so fun is that it’s just great to see the bag slide into the hole,” said Nathan Sprague of Ojai, one of the participants. “It’s just an adrenaline rush.”
It has grown into the largest cornhole tournament in the world. John Karayan said it started in 2009 as an end-of-summer street party for Spencer Makenzie Fish Company, his restaurant in Ventura.
It has exploded in size and has been held at the Ventura County Fairgrounds for several years. In 2014, it was the largest cornhole tournament in the world.
“All these people from all over the United States come to town. There are parties everywhere,” Karayan said. “Every state in the United States is represented, we have about a thousand teams.”
He said the prize money is $350,000, with the winner receiving $40,000. But aside from the serious teams, anyone who comes to the event can try their luck.
David Gonzales and his wife Alejandra Vega of Fresno are among the thousands camping at the fairgrounds for the festival.
“Cornhole is a great pastime…we love it,” Gonzales said. “We bring the family…it’s a family event.”
Is he good at it? “Not really,” he laughed. “I’ll be honest… I’m not.”
Vega said she was just coming for the fun and the parties.
The festival includes music all weekend long, the first axe throwing tournament, a vintage truck show and a food festival.
The truck show features square-body trucks from the 1960s to the 1980s, including vehicles such as Jeeps, Blazers and Broncos. The culinary offering has grown in recent years and now includes more than two dozen pop-up restaurants and food trucks.
Tickets are available at the exhibition center.
