Our First Ever Event – Lincoln Live Unplugged 2026
Lincoln Live Unplugged was one of those days for Jerk Centre.
The night before, we were still bottling sauce.
And bottling sauce.
And bottling a little bit more sauce.
By the time everything was finally ready, I managed to get just over two and a half hours’ sleep before it was time to get up and head to Lincoln.
Probably not something I’d recommend as an event preparation strategy. 😂
But the adrenaline had already kicked in.
I Haven’t Felt Those Nerves in Years
We arrived at around 9am, and something happened on the journey there that I really wasn’t expecting.
I was nervous.
Really nervous.
It reminded me of the feeling I used to get just before going on stage to sing when I was in my twenties.
It’s been a while.
I'm 52 now! Haha.
There was that same little knot in my stomach. That mixture of excitement, anticipation and wondering what on earth we’d got ourselves into.
We’ve spent years developing Jerk Centre, making the sauces, building the brand, taking photographs, creating the website, winning awards and talking about where we want this business to go.
But this was different.
Today, we were putting Jerk Centre directly in front of people.
And they were going to taste it.
Then the First People Arrived…
Once we’d set up, those nerves disappeared pretty quickly.
Because suddenly…
It was all go.
The crowds came in waves. Every 15 minutes or so another group would arrive – sometimes two or three people, sometimes considerably more – and before long we had people queuing around the stand waiting to sample our sauces and Yardie Drizzle.
And they were absolute troupers.
Mild.
Medium.
Hot.
And for the particularly brave…
Badman. 🌶️🔥
Watching people’s expressions as they tasted each one was probably one of our favourite parts of the entire day.
There were smiles.
There were surprised faces.
There were definitely a few people discovering that Badman isn’t playing games.
And then came possibly the most important review Jerk Centre has ever received.
Jerk Centre Scores 10,000/10
One of our youngest taste testers was a little lad of about five years old.
We asked him what score he’d give us.
His answer?
10,000.
Not ten out of ten.
Not one hundred.
TEN THOUSAND.
We’ll take that.
In fact, we may need to add it to the website:
⭐ “10,000/10 – Lincoln’s toughest five-year-old food critic.”
😂
Not Quite the Gazebo Debut We Imagined
We’d also been eagerly awaiting the public debut of our new Jerk Centre gazebo.
As it turned out, the event had its own market setup provided for traders, so our beautiful gazebo stayed packed away for another day.
Was I slightly disappointed?
Maybe.
After everything we’d done getting it ready, I couldn’t wait to see it standing there.
But within minutes it genuinely didn’t matter.
Because Lincoln Live Unplugged gave us something far more important.
People.
Wonderful people.
And What a View We Had
One of the unexpected privileges of having our stall there was effectively having a front-row seat to an entire day of live music.
And the performers were fantastic.
There was so much talent on that stage.
While we were talking about jerk sauce, pouring samples and meeting customers, this incredible soundtrack was happening right in front of us.
At moments Vincent and I would just look over and think:
How lucky are we to be here?
But the People Made the Day
Perhaps the biggest thing we brought home from Lincoln Live Unplugged wasn’t something that could be packed into the van.
It was the people we met.
Some genuinely fabulous human beings.
The sort of people where conversation feels easy and you immediately think:
Yep. These are our kind of people.
Good people with authentic hearts and nature.
What more could we possibly ask for?
We really hope some of those conversations become friendships and that we’ll be hanging out together again somewhere down the road.
And we have to give a very special mention to event hosts Collin and Anne Webb.
They were absolutely lovely.
They also got stuck into tasting the Jerk Centre sauces and Yardie Drizzle, which made us very happy indeed.
And their team?
Through-the-roof amazing.
From the moment we arrived, they made us feel welcome.
For two people arriving at their very first event with about two and a half hours’ sleep between them, that meant more than they probably realised.
So… Is This What Our Future Looks Like?
By the end of the day I realised something.
Those nerves I’d felt on the way there had disappeared completely.
In their place was excitement.
Because if this is what taking Jerk Centre out into the world feels like…
we want more of it.
More markets.
More festivals.
More conversations.
More people tasting Jerk Centre for the first time.
More five-year-olds giving us completely ridiculous review scores.
More friendships.
More adventures.
And hopefully many, many more days where we pack everything into the vehicle, wonder whether we’ve forgotten something, drive off ridiculously early in the morning and introduce another group of people to what we’ve been quietly building here in Lincolnshire.
For our first ever event, we couldn’t have asked for a better introduction.
Thank you Lincoln Live Unplugged.
Thank you Collin and Anne.
Thank you to the wonderful team.
Thank you to the performers.
And most importantly, thank you to every single person who stopped at the Jerk Centre stand, chatted with us and tasted something we’d created.
You made our first one rather special.
And somehow, I don’t think it’s going to be our last.
The Jerk Centre roadshow has officially begun. 🌶️🇯🇲❤️
