Feb 1, 2019

Big Idaho Potato Truck logged 40,000 miles, attended 68 events in 2018

When the Big Idaho Potato dropped at midnight in front of the Idaho State Capitol Building on New Year’s Eve, the Big Idaho Potato Truck, which was front and center for the “spudtacular” show, which officially ended its 2018 tour.

In 2018, the Big Idaho Potato Truck:

• Traveled 40,000-plus miles
• Participated in 68 scheduled events
• Four events had over 300,000 attendees
• St. Patricks’ Day Parade, Pittsburgh
• Art Car Parade, Dallas
• National Memorial Day Parade, Washington, D.C.
• Rose Festival, Portland, Oregon
• 15 events had over 100K attendees, including Indianapolis Indy Car Race
• NASCAR, Bristol, Tennessee
• St. Patrick’s Day Parade, Hilton Head, South Carolina
• Pegasus Parade, Louisville, Kentucky
• SeaFair Festival, Seattle
• Donated $12,000 to 21 charities across the country through its “A Big Helping” program
• Was invited to appear at American Idol’s Semi-Finals in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho
• Generated more than 300 million media impressions

However the biggest news of the year was the unveiling of Big Idaho Potato 2.0. Weighing in at 4 tons, the fiberglass potato is just as impressive as the original, but with a few subtle differences. The potato is still 28 feet long and 11.5 feet high, but it’s a little trimmer in the middle (10 feet wide), and two tons lighter so it can travel to more places. The original potato, which was only supposed to last one year, became too road worn to travel and now resides in its home state of Idaho.

“The Big Idaho Potato Truck continues to drive many of our marketing campaigns. It’s the focus of our national television commercials, it helps promote the potato’s impressive nutritional profile and generates hundreds of millions of impressions for the Idaho potato brand,” explained Frank Muir, President & CEO, Idaho Potato Commission. “Now that we’ve got a new fiberglass potato, there’s no end in sight for the biggest potato on wheels.”

To date

After seven years, the Truck’s track record is pretty impressive:

• The average tour length is six months
• The Truck has traveled approximately 211,722 miles
• It’s attended events in 651 cities/towns
• 46 events had more than 300,000 people in attendance
• 76 events had more 100,000 people in attendance
• The Truck has traveled through more than 10,000 cities and towns, nationwide and all lower 48 states
• “A Big Helping” has donated $67,000 to 124 charities located across the country
  Millions have taken pictures of the Big Idaho Potato Truck on their mobile devices
• Each day we receive appearance requests from fans, festivals and events all over the country

The 2019 Big Idaho Potato Truck Tour schedule will be available in early February 2019 at www.bigidahopotato.com.