If you go What: Throw Down at Pie Noon When: Noon, Saturday, Aug. 27 Where: Fifth Avenue and Main Street Cost: $15 per adult, $5 for kids 10 and under More info: Tickets available at Ace Hardware in Longmont; by calling 303-775- 2173; at the Festival on Main on Friday, Aug. 26; twinpeaksrotary.org until 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 27; walk-up tickets 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 27

Longmont’s three Rotary Clubs are cosponsoring the first-ever “Throw Down at Pie Noon,” billed as the “World’s Biggest Pie Fight!” on Saturday, Aug. 27, at Fifth Avenue and Main Street in Longmont.

The giant pie fight doubles as a kickoff for Festival on Main’s “Pop-Up Playground,” a mini-festival debuting Saturday with street performers, music, a beer garden, an Amazing Race and other activities.

The “Throw Down” is intended as a fun community event and a fundraiser for St. Vrain Valley School District Rotary Youth Programs.

Pie-fight organizers Rich Schenker, of Twin Peaks Rotary Club, and Cindy Noble, of Longmont Rotary Club, hope for 1,000 participants — enough to comfortably break the current Guinness world record of 869 pie-fight participants in Belfast, Ireland, on June 20, 2015.

“We are with this event trying to show the magnitude of Rotarians at work, and as importantly, Rotarians at play,” Noble said.

Longmont Mayor Dennis Coombs and SVVSD Superintendent Don Haddad, both Rotarians, will launch the event with a hand-to-face, extended-action pie fight. They will get as many pies as they like, Schenker said.

After a few more “celebrity” rounds and team competitions comes the big moment: The chance to break the world record.

“Free-for-all, disorganized chaos,” Schenker said. “Pack it in.”

Participants will gather along the north and south sides of Fifth Avenue — ready, set, throw!

Organizers will submit documentation to Guinness World Records North America. A determination on the pie fight will be made within a few weeks.

A team of 60 Rotarians will be on-site building pies, washing off participants’ faces with backpack sprayers and spotting participants to ensure ground rules are followed.

Tickets include a pie-throw poncho, goggles, commemorative sticker and two pies. Pastry lovers should note that the “pies” are built, not baked, consisting of whipped cream on sugar-cane plates that will be composted. A la carte pies will be available at $5 for two pies at the Pie-As-You-Go stand.

Friends, family members, neighbors, festivalgoers and those curious are invited.

“It’s been a great partnership. We think it’s an awesome event idea … It’s a great complement to the rest of the stuff we’ve got going on on Saturday,” said Colin Argys, event coordinator for Longmont Downtown Development Authority, which is a festival sponsor.

“Who hasn’t wanted to have a food fight as an adult? It’s also a good cause; Rotary is a great organization,” Argys said.

“It’s a fantastic service club. You leave your politics, your religious beliefs — they’re left at the door,” Schenker said.

“Rotary is my family. It’s the people I come to when something good happens, and it’s the people I come to when something hard happens. It’s not just meetings; it’s relationships, that are forever,” Noble said.

Rotary is an international service organization based on the mottos “Service Above Self” and “One Profits Most Who Serves Best.” Founded in 1905, there are more than 33,000 Rotary Clubs in 200 countries.

Royal Crest Dairy is donating approximately 300 quarts of whipping cream. The Times-Call is also an in-kind sponsor.

“I just encourage people to come down and register and throw a few pies, and then stick around for the music and Amazing Race and rest of festivities around downtown,” Argys said.

“It was my idea. I’ve wanted to do this my whole life. I grew up watching too many ‘Three Stooges’ movies, but I always thought it would be a great idea to have a pie fight,” Schenker said.

“Pie on!” he said.

Schenker and Noble do not envision the pie fight becoming an annual event.

“But we’re so damn creative, we’ll think of something else next year,” Schenker said.