Tony and Carol Noceti
STOCKTON — Boasting a new name and a revised venue, the San Joaquin Asparagus Festival, formerly known as the Stockton Asparagus Festival, will allow visitors to celebrate the locally grown vegetable for a 30th consecutive year.
New backers, Tony and Carol Noceti of French Camp, stepped in last summer when the event’s original organizers, citing low attendance and growing costs, called it quits after 29 years. The Nocetis are financing the revived festival through their organization, the Noceti Group, Inc.
This year’s Asparagus Festival will take place April 17-19 at its new home, the San Joaquin County Fairgrounds. The Nocetis expect 60,000 visitors over the three-day period.
“My husband and I talked about it, and we had people come and talk to us and say, ‘Hey, we can’t let this go.’ It is such a beautiful event, and Stockton has good things going for it,” said Carol Noceti. “We love promoting events. That’s what we do. We just knew we couldn’t let this go.”
The couple has enlisted sponsorships for the event from local businesses such as Save Mart Supermarkets, Chase Chevrolet of Stockton, O’Reilly Auto Parts, 51 Fifty Energy Drink, Les Schwab Tires and Cumulus Radio.
“Save Mart is a strong supporter of local events,” said Save Mart Sponsorship and Special Event Marketing Director Don Bean. “We are big fans of the Nocetis and like the fact that they want to keep alive the great tradition of the Asparagus Festival.”
The Noceti Group is using billboard advertising, radio and television spots, mass mailing, social networking including a Facebook page and a dedicated website to promote the festival.
Carol Noceti believes the couple’s past experience in reviving enterprises combined with a love for all things local will ensure that the San Joaquin Asparagus Festival is a continued area favorite.
“I don’t know that we’re doing anything the same or different than the old Asparagus Festival board of directors because I wasn’t actively involved with it. All I know is that what we do is promote events, so we’re familiar with what it takes to get the word out there,” she said.
While also managing the family’s farm of walnuts, alfalfa, safflower and wheat along with a downtown Ripon shop, Boutique Couture, the couple launched the Noceti Group in 2007. Their initial objective was to save the Stockton 99 Speed Way, an asphalt race track that originally opened in 1947.
“They had closed in September 2006, and it was slated for housing, and then the project went downhill. So we then came in and reopened it in 2009,” Carol Noceti said, noting that the raceway’s name is now The New Stockton 99 Speed Way.
The Group expanded its local promotional involvement with the goal of helping maintain the viability of the San Joaquin County Fairgrounds. The Nocetis reopened go-cart races there in 2012. It’s now referred to as the “Little 99.” In 2013 they launched Delta Speedway, a new dirt track race course also at the fairgrounds.
“That helps keep our fair going. It keeps our fairgrounds alive, too,” said Carol Noceti.
Now the Noceti Group is betting that its promotional formula for the fairgrounds will spell success for the San Joaquin Asparagus Festival as well.
“When the Asparagus Festival was going to die, we thought here’s another opportunity. We can bring this to the fairgrounds and do a whole bunch of good things here. We keep this Asparagus Festival going in the city of Stockton, but again we’re going to be able to help a little bit more to ensure that we keep our fairgrounds going,” said Carol Noceti.
The change in the festival’s location from Stockton’s downtown waterfront to the fairgrounds doesn’t concern the Nocetis. In fact, they expect it to be an advantage because there will be more parking and easier accessibility.
“It was painful downtown when you had to park six and seven blocks away to get to it,” said Tony Noceti. “We have special gates and designated entry for Stockton RTD so they can bring in people from other parts of Stockton without missing their schedules. There’s a lot of interest in this location,” Tony Noceti said, noting that shuttle buses also will run from overflow parking areas to the fairground gates.
The Noceti Group will use a similar non-profit organization model that the event’s previous organizers utilized to run the festival.
“The only difference is that we did not establish a (501c3) non-profit organization, but in fact we are doing the same thing they did before, using non-profit organizers,” Carol Noceti said. “Tony and I are not paying for somebody to market it. We’re marketing it. We’re going out there and getting the sponsorship. So we’re not guaranteed a profit, by no means.”
The Group is working with several organizations to run the festival, guaranteeing them a contracted, pre-determined payment for a set number of people to work a set number of hours. Some of the non-profit groups committed to staff the event include Stockton Host Lions Club, Stockton Kids Club, Manteca Youth Focus, Youth Focus Incorporated, Tokay High School Football and Track and Field booster clubs, and the Historic Durham Ferry 4H club.
“We are not getting any checks or draws from the event. When it is all said and done, and I’ve paid out the money to everyone that’s put this festival on including all the non-profit organizations, if there’s money left over in the end, then we’ll earn some profit,” said Carol Nocetti. “But if there’s no money left over, or if there’s a deficit, I not only didn’t make money, I may have lost money.”
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