Hot Ticket: Seventh Annual Hot Sauce Expo Returns

Competitors scarf spicy tacos and picante pizzas. Photo courtesy of High River Sauces.

By Sara Bosworth and Meaghan McGoldrick

Talk about a hot ticket.

A Queens event organizer is bringing New York City’s annual Hot Sauce Expo to Greenpoint for its seventh showcase of caliente creations. Mixologists, cooks, competitors and spice-connoisseurs from all over the world will flock to the Brooklyn Expo Center on the weekend of April 13-14 for two days of eating, drinking and judging.

The expo, which was first held in Williamsburg’s East River Park in 2013, will feature more than 50 hot sauce vendors based everywhere from Queens to New Zealand.

“We chose the Brooklyn Expo Center for the venue because I love the area. I am a Queens guy and the location couldn’t be more perfect,” said Steve Seabury, the organizer of the expo. “We had it in Manhattan on our [second] year and honestly it lost its magic.”

Seabury also founded High River Sauces, the event’s presenting sponsor, whose mission statement, according to its website, is “to rid the world of bad hot sauce.”

According to the event’s brightly colored website, scheduled events include the seemingly self-explanatory “Spicy Taco From Hell,” “Spicy Pizza of DOOM” and “Death Wing” challenges, as well as something called the “Hot Diggity Dog Diggity Challenge.”

The 2015 Chihuahua Beauty Paegant. Eagle file photo by Andy Katz.

There’s also a Chihuahua Beauty Contest where owners parade their costumed chihuahuas down a runway.

General admission tickets cost $10 in advance and $15 at the door. A special “Lagunitas Craft Beer & BBQ” ticket — which comes with four craft beer tokens, a BBQ lunch box and other hot sauce swag — runs for $50, while a VIP “all-access” ticket labeled “the deal of the century” is $100.