Chadwick Burnaw

• Produce 30–35 events annually across Austin, Cleveland and the DMV — part of 100+ festivals and markets produced since 2022.
• Most recent production: Empanada Festival, Austin market, September 2026 — a 36-space site plan spanning food stands, food trucks and trailers, retail vendors and sponsor activations.
• Built an asset-light venue model: breweries, distilleries and large-format outdoor venues keep their bar and on-site revenue in exchange for near-zero rent — removing the largest fixed cost from every event P&L.
• Recruit and manage food, food truck, merchandise and farmers-market vendors from a pipeline of 150–200+ businesses, on a tiered fee structure by vendor category.
• Own the vendor and sponsor sales function — lead sources, application flow, pricing and pipeline — with a dedicated salesperson running 4–5 discovery calls a day against it. Sponsorship has been ~99% inbound regional partners; currently building outbound pipeline for national CPG and beverage brands.
• Built a local coordinator model and the production documents behind it — staggered vendor arrivals that position large trucks before smaller tents, zoned site maps, load-in windows and contact trees — so hired market leads can run a site without me on the ground.
• Authored a 17-city, 15-state permitting and compliance library covering temporary food facility permits, food truck licensing, fire and alcohol rules and organizer checklists — the infrastructure that makes multi-market expansion repeatable.

Festival & market portfolio — 2022 to present

• Created and scaled six festival brands: Sazón Latin Food Festival, Empanada Festival, Parrilla, Pilón, El Mar and Plaza.
• Built Sazón into a portable format activated across Austin, Cleveland and the DMV through local venue partners rather than a permanent home venue.
• Built an owned audience of 100,000+ across email, SMS and social — replacing paid attendee acquisition with owned demand.
• Direct all brand creative, and set the cultural credibility standard: food, vendors, programming, language and partnerships that read as authentic to Latino and Afro-Latino audiences rather than decorated with cultural imagery.

Nightlife, hospitality & cultural experiences — 2015 to 2021

• Produced and promoted parties, DJ nights, dinners and brunches across San Francisco and Austin — entertainment booking, promotion, ticket sales and door/capacity management, and the consumer-behavior instincts that now drive festival programming and site design.

• Chief Growth Officer (Sep 2020 – Mar 2021) · Chief Marketing Officer (Jun 2020 – Sep 2020) · Digital Marketing Consultant (Mar 2020 – Jun 2020) — three titles in thirteen months.