Aside from all the things greagirl mentioned, the event coordinators and management were HORRIBLE. Disorganized, bad communication skills (rude, rude and rude), and lack of experience in customer service and satisfaction. I had to argue with the manager for half an hour to get my money back. All he kept saying was “Well, you were the one that decided to come and purchase tickets. It’s not our fault that you made the choice to come”. Are you serious?!?!!!

The “cooking competitions and demonstrations” were a freaking joke. The MC was pathetic and left the audience wondering what in the world was going on in the kitchen and during judging. How are we supposed to just know what ingredients he is using or what technique or how it ended up tasting?? Ridiculous!! And the “judges” were a bunch of moronic students from HCC (the DUMB students).

The $9 online advance ticket purchase was a load of crap since Ticketmaster ended up tacking on so many fees that it all ended up being more than $15 per person. Plus, they make you go to “will call” to confirm your order and there was no “will call” list. The workers/volunteers and the main Coordinator/Manager were completely clueless. WASTED MY DAY AND PATIENCE. Ended up having to go to a restaurant for food.

If I wrote everything I wanted to say about this festival, I would end up writing a 10 page paper. Just trust me that you do NOT want to ever go to this.

However, when we got there we were in utter disbelief. First of all there were like 15 tents there total. Of these tents about half were the usual festival crap – (marketing goods (pens, etc)/prize wheels to spin/informational brochures). 2 or so booths were giving away free food/beverage samples. There were like 2 or 3 selling stuff other than food.

That leaves about 4 or so that were actual selling food samples. There was NO big sampling pavilion. NONE of the vendors listed on their site were there.

It took like 30 minutes to visit every booth. I even had to ask if there was more somewhere else as surely this could NOT be it. Unfortunately it was. I felt so totally ripped off/cheated.

Luckily, I was a wonder with the prize wheel from some timeshare company and I won $40 in Houston Speedway drag racing tickets. I also scored a Cricket t-shirt from the Cricket wireless tent. Otherwise I would have been even more pissed.

In the end we felt really sorry for those people who paid more than the 7.50/ticket that we paid through stubdog.

My advice: Save your money and eat out somewhere in the AC instead. What to help out the food bank? Donate directly.