Last weekend, August 30th through September 2nd, 2024, Crowd Cow had the honor to sponsor the Telluride Film Festival. In turn, it was my honor to be able to represent the brand and get to mingle with film enthusiasts from across the country.

I’d like to say this event was a key piece of our marketing strategy for the year, but like many things at a scrappy startup, it was opportunistic. In fact, Telluride had a long standing, well known meat sponsor for the last several years. But the chef in charge for the festivals’ meals wanted a change in direction. He wanted a partner whose values better reflected that of the festivals’ attendees. A partner that values quality and storytelling above all else.

And that’s how I found myself in one of the most beautiful places in the country, surrounded by amazing story tellers, producers, and celebrities like Martha Stewart, Pharrel Williams, Ken Burns, and more. But it wasn’t the celebrities that made the event for me, it was the attendees. 

Traveling solo affords the opportunity to strike up conversations with strangers, and I met people from all over the country. Many were repeat attendees, and they gushed about how this was the best film festival in the country, if not the world. They talked about how the Telluride Film Festival was the anti-red-carpet event, and how the festival was committed to providing access to film enthusiasts of all budgets and backgrounds, not just the ultra wealthy and well connected. 

And as someone with only a casual interest in movies, sitting surrounded by cinephiles, I was struck by the thought that, “this must be what it’s like for everyone else when I talk about meat and the farms and ranches that we work with.”

Of course, passion for stories was the common ground with everyone I met, and when they would inevitably ask me what I did (a natural question when you’re wearing a very obvious “SPONSOR” badge around your neck), I leapt at the chance to tell them about the organic, free range chicken from Farmer Focus, the 6th generation farm in the Shenandoah Valley that was being served Monday night, or Royal Ranch, the carbon-neutral, single family ranch in Eastern Washington whose beef was going to be in the burgers that night. 

It was also great to see our logo on signage, and chefs outside donning Crowd Cow branded aprons, bringing brand awareness to so many people in our target audience. I left the event with several ideas for next year, and while success will continue to be measured in the coming weeks, it was clear that continued partnership with the festival holds a lot of promise for both sides.