This Saturday the event will be held at the former CVB Convention Center (former Stockton’s Entertainment) and have an addition compared to previous years.

The Fall Festival Cook-Off, organized by Jimmy Stephens, will be featured and have judging starting at 11 a.m. through 2 p.m.

Chicken will be judged at 11 a.m., pork ribs at noon, pork at 1 p.m., and brisket at 2 p.m.

Stephens said he was given short notice to get the event together, but was able to bring in a decent number of cooks, ranging from 20-25 who have verbally committed.

“My head judge and her husband and coming in from Amarillo and I have a couple of teams coming in from El Paso. There’s other cook-offs going on but we managed to get some others away from those cook-offs. It wasn’t my intentions I was just trying to help out. I didn’t know if we could do it or not, I made it about three phone calls and it was on,” he said.

The event will feature live music starting at 6 p.m., an hour and a half after the award ceremony is held for the cook-off. The bands playing will be Grupo Manada and Los Tesoros De Javi.

During the day there will also be goat roping, pony rides, a corn hole tournament and craft/food vendors.

“Fall Festival has been happening for a couple of years. We were in conjunction, we worked it with the Rebecca Creek Trailer Roping. This year the roping was cancelled, they decided not to have it. We actually moved the festival back here to the convention center to the plaza,” said Fort Stockton CVB Director Crystal Lopez said. “Then we thought we needed to add something else to it. We do have a goat roping and cornhole tournament.”