Furnace Chicken Festival: Birmingham’s Hottest Celebration With a Big Heart
What do you get when you combine chicken and community? If you’re in Birmingham, Alabama, you get the Furnace Chicken Festival — a community celebration that is quickly becoming Birmingham’s hottest festival and proof that the best events are often born from pure, unfiltered love for a city and its people.
I attended the inaugural event in 2025 and left knowing that I wanted to attend again. So, when I received confirmation from festival director William A. LeShore to attend this year’s festival as a media presence, I was all in.
As the author of Secret Birmingham: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure and a longtime contributor to Bham Family Magazine, I’ve spent years seeking out the stories that make Birmingham unique. The hidden gems, the community anchors, the experiences that don’t always make the generic tourism brochures. The Furnace Chicken Festival was no doubt the kind of story I exist to tell.
Cherith Glover Fluker is a Birmingham-based writer, contributor to Bham Family Magazine and author of Secret Birmingham: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure. Her forthcoming book, Small Town Alabama, is currently in progress. She attended the Furnace Chicken Festival on invitation as a media guest.
A Setting That Does the Heavy Lifting
Let’s start with the venue, because it matters. The Furnace Chicken Festival is held at historic Sloss Furnaces, a national historic landmark in the city of Birmingham. If you’ve ever stood in Sloss’s iron-stained shadow and felt the weight of Birmingham’s industrial soul, you already understand why this location is more than just a backdrop. It’s a participant.
There’s something almost poetic about a festival rooted in community spirit unfolding at a site that literally helped forge this city. Having written Birmingham’s culture for years, I can tell you: the choice to plant this event at Sloss Furnaces is no accident. It signals intention and a desire to honor the past while writing something new into it.
The Family Behind the Festival
The Furnace Chicken Festival is a family affair, and I mean that in every good sense of the word. Festival Founder and CEO Ivory LeShore III is the creative engine behind the event — the driving force behind its identity, its energy, and its heart.
If his name sounds familiar, it might be because of Ivory LeShore’s Gourmet Bread Pudding & Cheesecakes, which has become a staple at community events across Birmingham and is home to what I personally call my all-time favorite bread pudding. But that is absolutely a story for another day.
What matters here is that Ivory is someone who learned firsthand — one dessert table at a time — the power of food to bring people together. That experience gave him the insight and resilience he now pours into the Furnace Chicken Festival. His vision is clear: to make every guest feel Birmingham’s pride, flavor, and fun while positioning this festival as one of the city’s premier annual traditions.
COO and Event Director William A. LeShore, Ivory’s brother, is the organizational force that makes the creative vision a reality. With a background in real estate leadership and large-scale project management, William oversees the logistics, sponsorships, and vendor coordination that keep everything running seamlessly. As he puts it himself:
We wanted to create a signature event at Sloss Furnaces that would leave people saying: I can’t wait until next year.
William a. leshore, COO & Event Director
Mission accomplished. And then some.
From Inaugural to Evolving — A Festival Growing Into Itself
The inaugural Furnace Chicken Festival launched in May of 2025, and the second event came back bigger and better. That trajectory is exactly what you want to see from a festival with genuine roots in the community.
It’s fun to watch an event grow and evolve and to see a vision become a movement in real time. William has spoken about wanting to create something that would bring the community together, highlight local vendors and artisans, and build a space for real family-friendly fun. Year two showed that the foundation is solid and the momentum is only building.
The Full-Day Experience: Something for Everyone
This is a full-day festival, and they mean it. From the moment you arrive, you can tell this was designed with intention. There’s live music threading through the entire day, a DJ keeping energy high, live performances from local artists, and a kids zone that ensures people of all ages feel genuinely included.
The classic car showcase brought out enthusiasts who created this wonderful, unexpected collision of car culture and chicken culture that somehow works perfectly. The cartoon artist had a line that never seemed to shorten. I stood and watched him for a while, turning faces into caricatures with effortless speed. There were tattoo artists, arts vendors, local organizations, and more than 30 food trucks and arts vendors serving up everything from mouthwatering chicken dishes to unique vendors and local crafts.
And yes, the best wing competition is exactly as serious and delicious as it sounds. Local chefs battle it out for the crown of Birmingham’s best, and the crowd is very much invested in the outcome.
The VIP Lounge: Worth Every Penny
I want to specifically highlight the VIP lounge, because it deserves a spotlight of its own. A red carpet and photo area, generous and comfortable seating, and exclusive access to a catered buffet and drink area made the area feel elevated without feeling exclusionary. More like Birmingham putting its very best foot forward and pulling up a chair. If you’re on the fence about the upgrade for next time, just do it.
More Than a Festival — A Movement with Purpose
Here’s where this story gets even better. A portion of the proceeds from the Furnace Chicken Festival benefits Disability Rights & Resources, a Birmingham organization dedicated to empowering independence and inclusion in our community. Ivory LeShore III is proud to partner with them, and that partnership is woven into the DNA of the festival.
This kind of community engagement is what separates a good event from a great one. The Furnace Chicken Festival is invested in Birmingham not just for one Saturday in May, but in a way that extends beyond the event itself — creating opportunities for small businesses, spotlighting local talent, supporting nonprofits, and investing in causes that matter long after the last wing is judged and the music fades.
More than just a festival, the Furnace Chicken Festival is a movement to celebrate community and give back. Proceeds from our inaugural event supported local organizations dedicated to strengthening Birmingham. Each year, we continue to expand our reach — creating opportunities for small businesses, spotlighting local talent, and investing in causes that matter.
Festival mission
Why This Is the Kind of Local Event Birmingham Needs
In my work writing Birmingham stories — for Bham Family Magazine, in Secret Birmingham, and now in my upcoming book Small Town Alabama — I am constantly reminded that the richest experiences are almost always the local ones. Not the polished, heavily advertised, algorithmically recommended ones. The ones born because someone from here decided their city deserved something special.
That is exactly what Festival Founder Ivory LeShore III and Festival Director William A. LeShore have created — a space that uplifts local vendors and small businesses, celebrates Birmingham’s culture in full, makes real room for families, and reminds everyone in attendance that community engagement is not a civic obligation but a genuine pleasure.
The Furnace Chicken Festival has been featured on local news and radio stations and is earning its place as a fixture in the city, and it’s only getting started.
The festival is slated to return in 2027, and I will be there. You should be too. In the meantime, follow their website and social media handles so you’re the first to know when dates, tickets, and lineup announcements drop.
This is Birmingham’s most flavorful gathering — and the city is just getting warmed up.
Stay Connected — Follow the Furnace Chicken Festival
Website: furnacechickenfest.com
Instagram: @fcf42025
Facebook: Furnace Chicken Festival
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Want to get involved? Visit the website to purchase tickets, apply as a vendor, volunteer, or become a sponsor.
