The Wicomico County Wine Festival was held this weekend and it was a packed house. On Saturday by 3:00 pm they had sold over 2,700 tickets and the weather was just prefect for an outside event.
Unfortunately here is the problem as I see it, they changed the layout of the event this year and it honestly just did not work very well.
The music stage was in the center of all the wine and food vendors and the area was so congested you could not get around. They had the speakers pointing at the wine vendors tents making so difficult to talk about the samples. By Sunday afternoon several of the employees had lost their voice trying to over talk the music.
Also, the food vendors where way to close to the wine vendors. The smoke from their fryers and smokers would get under the wine tents and get trapped. At times it was so heavy it was hard to breathe.
So, the positives were thousands of people showed up to enjoy the event. The down side was how it was laid out. Hopefully event organizers will hear what commenter's have to say and they will make the appropriate changes next year.
It was definitely a mess out there. Reminded me of the messed up layout at Pork in the Park, where the whole wristband/ticket/beer things so close together was very confusing. I thought wristband lines were beer lines, and nobody explained to me that i had to buy tickets when i got a wristband. I've got to wonder who gets to provide input for these things?
ReplyDeleteThank you Joe!!!!! I couldn't have said it better.
ReplyDeleteWere the wine vendors stingy with the samples like in the past?
ReplyDeleteSo that everyone knows many of the winerys and vendors had input to the setup. This was copied from other successful events. Your second comment is right on 2700 tickets sold. Well exceeded our expectations.
ReplyDeleteThis was the first year in the last 8 or so that I didn't attend. It looks like it was a good year to miss from the logistical standpoint. It's a fantastic event, and I hope they work out the bugs and go back to the layout of previous years.
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