Overview The Food Network South Beach Wine and Food Festival is four days of more than 100 ticketed events in late February, from chef-hosted dinners to the Grand Tasting Village on the sand in Miami Beach, and all net proceeds go to the Chaplin School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Florida International University. More than 1,200 FIU students work the festival each year. In 2026 Capital One presented the festival and Southern Glazer's Wine and Spirits was the exclusive host and beverage provider. It began as a one-day event called the Florida Extravaganza on FIU's Biscayne Bay campus. On site The Grand Tasting Village is the center of the weekend: tents of restaurants, wineries and spirits bars, a culinary demonstration stage and a separate North Venue. In 2026 the Voltaggio brothers made a giant crab pie on the demo stage, and Tyler Florence hosted Masters of Fire, moved that year to the North Venue. Around it run the signature nights, among them Mike's Amazing Burger Bash, Wine Spectator's Best of the Best at the Fontainebleau and Tacos and Tequila in the Design District, plus late-night parties, brunches, seminars and small dinners. The 2026 edition spread across Miami Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Homestead, and Miami artist Romero Britto made the 25th-anniversary art on the entry banners, ticket booths and Burger Bash crowns. Audience It is a Florida crowd first: 70.5% of ticket buyers in the festival's data came from Florida, two-thirds of those from Miami-Dade. After Florida, the states that buy the most tickets are New York, New Jersey, California, Texas and Georgia. The Grand Tasting Village sends guests home with about 17,000 gift bags. Talent and Influencers Guy Fieri, Rachael Ray and Bobby Flay were at the 2026 festival. That year Duff Goldman hosted the 25th-birthday cake party, Andrew Zimmern the closing night with DJ Cassidy, and Kwame Onwuachi and Nina Compton a late-night Afro-Caribbean pool party. Diplo played LIV, and Carla Hall, Michael Symon and Bert Kreischer recorded podcasts live at the Miami Beach Bandshell. Sofia Vergara, Ashley Graham, Ja Rule and DJ Khaled turned up with their own food and drink brands. Lee Schrager was festival director in 2026. Track record The 2026 festival was the 25th, ran 102 events and added 13 new ones. The festival counts $46 million raised for the Chaplin School. Its 2026 sponsorship overview reported 9.7 billion public relations impressions, 833 million advertising impressions, more than 100 media partners and 34 emails to 400,000 members at a 45% average open rate. Brand presence Packages are built one by one. At the top, partners can hold festival-wide exclusivity and appear in about 85% of the festival's own advertising; at the middle levels, a partner can title or present a single event with category exclusivity there. Every partner's logo goes on the master sign at the Grand Tasting entrance and in the Official Festival Guide, inserted in the Miami Herald and The New York Times and handed out at partner hotels. In 2026 Baileys built a 20-by-20-foot vintage Miami beach house, Tito's canned cocktails on site, American Airlines took the North Venue title and had flight attendants hand out chocolate bars, and HGTV opened a beach lounge facing the ocean.