The first Lexington Barbecue Festival was in 1984. It was the idea of Joe Sink, Jr., who worked for Lexington's newspaper, "The Dispatch". The city of Lexington was already famous for barbecue and the city decided it was a good idea to have a festival every year. The first year, 30,000 people came to eat barbecue at the festival. The festival is one of the largest in the United States now. By 1994, more than 100,000 people came each year, and they had to cook 11,000 pounds of meat. In 2012, more than 160,000 people came to try the Lexington barbecue.