Ham & Yam Festival

05/07/2022

The rain may have put a damper on the last couple of hours, but we are so thankful for an otherwise beautiful, blue sky day for the 36th-ish* Annual Smithfield Ham & Yam Festival! Thank you to all of the attendees, vendors, sponsors, town and county staff, and volunteers who made the festival possible!

Although this year’s Ham & Yam Festival is over, we hope to see you in Historic Downtown Smithfield, NC very soon! If you haven’t already, go over and like that page to learn more about what’s going on downtown!

05/07/2022

Our 36th-ish* Annual Smithfield Ham & Yam Festival shirts are flying out of here! Get yours before they’re gone at the tent on Front Street in front of the Hastings House!

05/07/2022

Come by and visit with JoCo Grows Agriculture, we are across from SoDoSoPa - it’s Strawberry Harvest Season and we have a wonderful picnic basket we are giving away! 🍓

We are all set up and ready for visitors here at the Ham & Yam Festival in Downtown Smithfield! Stop by to find out more about JoCo farms and events while entering to win our giveaway basket - it's filled with strawberry farm goodness!

05/06/2022

The Got To Be NC Stage sponsored by N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services is looking good! We’ll see y’all tomorrow!

05/03/2022

One of our favorite parts of the Ham & Yam Festival is seeing all of the creative entries for the What’s That Yam Thing? contest! We’re looking forward to seeing this year’s! Check out all the details at https://www.johnstoncountync.org/ham-and-yam-festival/attractions/whats-that-yam-thing-contest/.

04/29/2022

Is anybody else’s mouth watering for one of those Kiwanis Club of Smithfield ham biscuits? We’re counting down the days!!!

04/22/2022

Thanks to InterState Outdoor, Inc., one of our awesome Gold Tater sponsors, for helping us spread the word about the 36th-ish* annual Smithfield Ham & Yam Festival! Keep your eye out for our ads on the digital billboards on 301 in Smithfield and on future I-42 in Wilson’s Mills!

04/15/2022

Get excited, Smithfield! We’re just over three weeks away from the 36th-ish* Smithfield Ham & Yam Festival presented by Stevens Sausage Co. and Agri Supply!

The Downtown Smithfield Development Corporation is pleased to announce that the 36th-ish* annual Ham & Yam Festival presented by Stevens Sausage and Agri Supply will be held on Saturday, May 7. After three long years, this beloved community event that features tasty ham and yam foods, entertainment on three stages, a variety of vendors, kids’ activities, and fun for the entire family will make its return.

“We are excited to bring the Ham & Yam Festival back this year! It’s a beloved Smithfield tradition, and we have heard how much people have missed it. ” stated Sarah Edwards, festival organizer and Executive Director of the Downtown Smithfield Development Corporation. “Festivalgoers’ first Ham & Yam memories are often of things like having fun in the children’s area, enjoying a country ham biscuit, getting their faces painted, entering their artistic sweet potato creations in the What’s That Yam Thing? contest, or performing as part of a school group on one of the stages.”

In addition to the Ham & Yam traditions, the committee has added some new components to the festival. New this year is the “Best of Ham & Yam” contest, which will recognize one food vendor or Downtown Smithfield restaurant for having the best ham and yam food after a popular vote and a judges’ vote. Information about the entrants and their offerings will be available soon on the festival website.

The festival will be headlined by performances from Paige King Johnson at 2:30pm and The Original Rhondels at 4:30pm on the NC Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services’s Got To Be NC Stage at the Agri Supply – Stevens Sausage Pavilion on Front Street.

Country music singer-songwriter Paige King Johnson is a newcomer to the country charts, where she had a Top 30 single with “Water Down the Whiskey.” The 23-year-old is a three-time Carolina Music Awards winner, and has opened for James Otto, Neal McCoy, and Scotty McCreery, and is the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services’ Musical Ambassador for their “Got to Be NC” campaign.

The Original Rhondels are a beach music tradition that has been entertaining since 1969. With three Top 10 hits in “May I,” “I’ve Been Hurt,” and “What Kind of Fool Do You Think I Am,” the band delights audiences that sing and dance along to some of the best party and dance songs from the past fifty years.

We can’t wait to see you in Historic Downtown Smithfield, NC!

The Ham & Yam Festival is organized by the nonprofit Downtown Smithfield Development Corporation. To learn more about the Ham & Yam Festival, including sponsorship and vendor opportunities, please visit www.hamandyam.com, or call Sarah Edwards at 919-934-0887.

01/11/2022

Hi, folks! The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic may have put a damper on the Ham & Yam Festival for the last couple of years, but we're planning for the future and want your input! Please take a few minutes to give us your feedback about the Ham & Yam Festival at https://forms.gle/ZXLb9Eu4FwCFK87Z9. We want to hear from everyone, whether you've attended the festival before or not.

Additional surveys will be going out to other stakeholder groups; if you are a downtown business owner, sponsor, or past vendor, be on the lookout for an email arriving to your inbox in the very near future!

Be on the lookout for more information coming soon!

08/21/2020

Need your sweet potato fix? Head over to Historic Downtown Smithfield, NC’s newest business, The Gilded Pear Brew House, before 2:00 for today’s special, a Sweet Potato English Muffin with Marshmallow Cream & Cinnamon Brown Sugar! Your taste buds will thank you!

03/19/2020

The Downtown Smithfield Development Corporation (DSDC) Board of Directors has announced the postponement of the 2020 Smithfield Ham & Yam Festival amid concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The Ham & Yam Festival has been a Smithfield staple for the past thirty-five years,” stated DSDC Executive Director Sarah Edwards. “Our first priority with the festival is always safety, and in an abundance of caution and for the health and safety of all attendees and our community, we have decided that it is appropriate to postpone the festival at this time.”

Based on the mandates issued in Governor Roy Cooper’s Executive Order 117 prohibiting mass gatherings until at least April 13 and the Center for Disease Control’s recommendation to cancel mass gatherings through May 10, the Board’s consensus was that there was simply too much uncertainty to feasibly move forward.

Originally planned for May 2, the annual festival draws approximately 20,000 visitors to Downtown Smithfield each year for country ham and sweet potato foods, entertainment, a barbecue cook-off, vendors, and fun for the entire family. With such a large event, there are many things that must be considered in determining a reschedule date.

“Rest assured, we will share information as it becomes available,” stated Edwards. “In the meantime, we hope that everyone will join us in Downtown Smithfield at our events scheduled later in the spring and into the summer, and that the community continues supporting our small businesses in an effort to keep .”

The Ham & Yam Festival is organized by the nonprofit Downtown Smithfield Development Corporation. All questions should be directed to DSDC Executive Director Sarah Edwards at 919-934-0887.

05/05/2019

The Original Drifters just took the stage at the 2019 Smithfield Ham & Yam Festival!

05/04/2019

Did you know Ham & Yam was featured in Garden & Gun Magazine and Our State Magazine? The support of Visit Johnston County, NC and the Johnston County Visitors Bureau team is critical to the success of the festival as we seek to attract people from outside Johnston County! Among the attendees today were folks from South Carolina, Charlotte, and Virginia Beach! Thank you to the Visitors Bureau everything that you do for the Ham & Yam Festival!

05/04/2019

If you’ve traveled on 301 in the past couple of months, you’ve seen our ad on the InterState Outdoor, Inc. billboard! Thank you to InterState for your long-time support of the festival and for helping us get the word out!

05/04/2019

Agri Supply was one of our awesome Boss Hog sponsors for this year’s festival! We appreciate their support so much!

05/04/2019

The Second Street Stage is running about 30 minutes behind. The WEJ just went on!

05/04/2019

What a crowd! Great day so far!

05/04/2019

In addition to being a Ham & Yam Festival Big Yam sponsor, Kornegay Family Farms and Produce provided 2 pallets of sweet potatoes for attendees to take home. Get yours at the corner of Second and Johnston streets!

05/04/2019

It’s pig racing time! Come cheer them on when they race again at 2:00 and 4:00.

05/04/2019

Live from the What’s That Yam Thing? Contest awards! There are so many great entries

05/04/2019

It’s breakfast time at Ham & Yam! Come and get your ham biscuits with Stevens Sausage Co. Ham!

05/04/2019

Good morning! The streets are beginning to fill up with vendors and the smell of barbecue is in the air! It’s going to be a great day for the 35th Annual Smithfield Ham & Yam Festival!

05/03/2019

The Little Brown Jug is Ham & Yam Jam ready! We can’t wait to kick off Ham & Yam weekend with great music, cold beer, and yummy food!

https://facebook.com/events/651615621976145

05/02/2019

Eek! Our phones are down at the moment. The issue has been reported and they’re working to get it fixed. In the meantime, if you need to reach us, please message us here on Facebook.

04/30/2019

Here’s your guide to the 2019 Smithfield Ham & Yam Festival!

04/29/2019

Think you’ve got what it takes to win the sweet potato pie eating contest? At 1:45 this Saturday on the Second Street stage, eight participants will compete to see who can eat 1/4 of a sweet potato cheesecake pie the fastest. To enter, tell us in the comments how fast you think you can do it. We’ll randomly select our contestants on Thursday.

04/29/2019

It’s Ham & Yam week! This blast from the past is an entry into the 1988 festival’s “What’s That Yam Thing?” contest. Entries for this year’s contest will be accepted at the corner of Second and Johnston streets from 3-6pm on Friday and 8:30-9:30am on Saturday, and the awards ceremony will be Saturday at 11am. We can’t wait to see all of the creative entries!

04/25/2019

Have you seen the shirts for the 2019 Smithfield Ham & Yam Festival? We'll have them for $15 in sizes Youth Medium and Adult Small through 3X in just nine days at the festival! They're super soft and from Oak City Collection, right here in Historic Downtown Smithfield, NC!

For those of you who don’t know the festival’s history, it started in 1985 with a challenge from the ham producers of Smithfield and Johnston County, North Carolina to the ham producers of Smithfield, Virginia. After a few years, we kept winning and they stopped coming!

04/11/2019

Johnston County's "Big 5" country ham producers just prior to the first Ham & Yam Festival in April 1985. As you can see, Stevens Sausage Co. has been involved since the beginning, and we’re so grateful for their continued support!

03/21/2019

The Downtown Smithfield Development Corporation is pleased to announce that The Original Drifters will headline the 35th annual Smithfield Ham & Yam Festival presented by Stevens Sausage Co. and Agri Supply, with a free concert scheduled for 8:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 4.

More than fifty years ago, The Drifters launched what would become an incredible career. With roots in doo w*p, soul, and R&B, the music that made them a legendary act carries on today through The Original Drifters. The current lineup, assembled by Bill Pinkney, an original member of The Drifters, includes bandmates Chuck Cockerham and Richard Knight Dunbar, as well as Russell Henry and Roger Whitehead. Among their most popular songs are "This Magic Moment," "Save the Last Dance for Me," "Up on the Roof," "On Broadway," and "Under the Boardwalk."

"We are excited to bring The Original Drifters to Smithfield for the Ham & Yam Festival," states Sarah Edwards, festival organizer and Executive Director of the Downtown Smithfield Development Corporation. "With their talent and multi-generational appeal, we're looking forward to a great show that will have the audience up dancing and singing along!"

Join us at the 2019 Smithfield Ham & Yam Festival!

03/15/2019

It was close, but Team Ham was victorious over Team Yam!

02/23/2019

Do you have a favorite local band that you want to see perform on one of our three stages at Ham & Yam? Tag them below! The deadline for bands to respond to our entertainment request has been extended to February 28.

The form is available on our website, www.hamandyam.com.

05/08/2018

Ham & Yam Festival

Didn't get your 2018 Smithfield Ham & Yam Festival t-shirt on Saturday? Good news! We have a limited number remaining, and you can get one through our online store! We also have a very limited number of 2017 shirts available as well. Don't wait and miss your chance!

05/06/2018

Natural Wonder is jamming! You don’t want to miss this!