Cincinnati Chocolate Festival

Great idea, poor execution.
If standing in line for extremely long periods of time, while rude people cut in over and over again, is of interest to you, then by all means, go next year. Unless the people who plan this find a way to set it up so it runs smoothly, I won’t waste my time.

For a «festival,» this was a very underwhelming event. We bought 2 tickets for $ 20 on living social, which included a swag bag that had a couple of chocolates in it, and 5 tasting tickets each. We also purchased an additional wine and chocolate pairing for $ 16 each. The wine tasting group ended up contacting us to give us a rebate because they also had a groupon type thing going and wanted to give us that price, which I thought was nice. When we arrived the check in people were efficient and gave us directions to where the wine lounge was, since we didn’t come in the main entrance. We walked around a bit and the main thing that stood out to me was that over half of the booths were empty! The event was one day only, and ran from 12 – 5, and we got there at 3, so we were really surprised to see a lot of the event already shut down.
The wine pairing was with Maverick, a local chocolate company, and we really enjoyed talking to their staff about their history, process, and inspiration. Each pairing was a couple of small pieces of their chocolate, and maybe 2 – 3 ounces of wine. There weren’t any reps there for the wine, and the volunteers didn’t really know much about the wines, so the «pairing» part was sort of off. There were four pairings and we had 45 minutes to do them so we were able to take our time in between tastes. The chocolate was awesome, and we bought some, but the wines were not for sale, which was the first time I’ve ever been to a wine tasting where you couldn’t buy wines you tried!
After our tasting we went around to look at the rest of the vendors, almost every other booth was half empty. Some of the vendors ran out of chocolate and others were telling us to take as many as we wanted without giving them tickets because they brought way too much, so it seemed like the organizers maybe didn’t communicate expected attendance.
Overall, I would not go back to the Chocolate Festival. We did not feel like $ 2/​taste of chocolate ($ 10 per person got you 5 tasting tickets) was a good value at all– most of the time that got you one piece of chocolate, and sometimes it only got you half a piece or less, and there were very few companies there that we hadn’t tried before.

This was so disappointing. I bought tickets for the wine tasting and chocolate pairing for $ 16 each for 5 1 oz. pours of cheap $ 10 – 12 wines and two choc chips (Mavericks) which would have been incredibly poor value had they not refunded money when they switched to 2 for $ 10 tickets «due to slow ticket sales.» We did love the chocolate and bought some bars ($ 8 each, so pricey).
It ran from noon to 5 p.m. and we arrived at 3:30 only to find most of the booths wiped out and closing. Everything we hoped to try, especially the cupcakes, gone. We sampled a few Graeter’s and chain store chocolate (which we could have done at a mall for free) and got a swag bag of one lone biscotti and a package (seriously!) of a Swiss Miss hot chocolate. Skip it.

Looked forward to this festival all week. Drove an hour and a half to get there.
This was the most disorganized festival I’ve ever attended. No crowd control barriers or anything in place so people would know which line was which or for what. The staff present didn’t even make any effort to focus people on lines. People ended up wrapping around the entire facility with the only people being served were those aggressive enough (or those rude enough) to walk in front of people in lines to get service.
Two of us attended, receiving 10 sample tickets to splurge at our leisure. After 45 minutes we’d expended one ticket and sampled one chocolate. Not due to our being selective, just the time we waited in line! We then calculated (based on line size and others barging to the front of the line) would occur in approximately 30 minutes.
We decided to cut our losses, donated our remaining 9 tickets to a very nice (and patient) lady with 3 children waiting in line.
Next year if we choose to donate we’ll mail a check rather than wasting the gas.

This year’s festival was a major let down. I went the first year it was open and loved it. However, this year it seemed as if no one was in charge and it was chaos. The most wanted chocolate venues were all right next to each other which caused crazieness. Half the people tried to form lines which is some places were over 30 minutes long while others just walked up to the both paying no attention to the lines since there was no official organization. Then most places there were empty both seeming like many vendors did not show up.
What takes the cake is that after waiting in just a few lines most other places ran out of samples so we couldn’t even use all our tickets. I felt so bad for the people just arriving when we were leaving because there was almost nothing left.
This event has so much potential I just hope that someone takes charge of it next year who can make it what it used to be.

I REALLY wanted to love this event.
I just can’t.
So I am not the most organized person in the entire world, but if you are going to host an event of this side, you need to have some serious organizational skills.
This event did not.
VIP hours were supposed to start at 11am. So why did VIP ticket holders have to wait in line with people who had general admission tickets. One of the women who was supposed to be in charge was freaking out because so many people showed up.
The volunteers I spoke to were really nice, but didn’t seem to know their surroundings or what they were supposed to be doing. My friend and I asked where the Bistro was and were sent down a staircase that led to a gym… not a bistro.
There were so many people that within the first hour of the event, there were no longer individual lines to visit the vendors that you wanted to see… instead there was one big line that wrapped around the entire convention.
The only bright spot in this event was the Maverick Chocolate wine pairing. Four delicious wines paired with their chocolate and a private room to escape the madness and have the ability to purchase a specialty truffle box.
I would recommend saving the money you would have spent on a ticket and just visit the individual chocolate shops.

I attended this event with my sister in 2014. There is a whole lot of chocolate here. Yum! You start out with tickets for tastings at the different vendors and there is the opportunity to purchase additional tickets at the event. There were A LOT of different vendors and a lot of chocolaty things to see. I recommend walking through at least once so that you can decide what samples you are most interested in tasting.
My only complaint is that the later it gets in the day the more congested the event is. We arrived right when it opened and that was a VERY wise decision. We were kind of crammed together with loads of other pushy people right before we left and that was not ideal.
We also upgraded to tickets that included the Bella Luna lounge and wine tasting. This was a great value. Bella Luna provided small bites of (not chocolate) food like pasta and bruchetta. There were 5 wine tastings included in the price and they were very generous pours. I would attend again.

Oh my goodness, what a stress. After getting there at 1 PM, one hour after festival’s kick off, we were already anxious from the start, trying to figure confusing parking with no clear signs. As we approached the entrance, we saw looooong line of people, who occured to be Groupon holders. Not cool to put a separate extra slow line for coupon people! Anyway, we felt lucky to get in fast with our Kroger tix. The happiness was short lived.
This festival was just one huge disappointment. The place was so packed and the vendor’s stands were so close that there was just one chain of people around the venue and nobody knew where the line starts and if there is an end. I did not even know what I was standing after, just moved with the crowd. Since the building was oval, one could have been spinning all day long, one flew over the cuckoo’s nest :-) My husband got so upset that he wanted to leave immediately so I grabbed all our 10 tickets and got 5 samples at first stand I finally got to (some mini cupcakes) and 5 at another (chocolates). We did not even see the rest, did not care what we got, we just wanted to break free from this horror chocaholics line! :)
I expected something completely different. Don’t think it was planned this freak way, the organization was not the best.
Anyway, it was a good Halloween ‘training’, the treats came with bad trick.
Nice from far, far from nice :)

I was REALLY disappointed with my experience at the Cincinnati Chocolate Festival. However, it didn’t really have to do with the selection of chocolate, but with the organization of the event.
1. Parking. There were really no clear signs whether parking was free. All the lots said «permit required» I just trusted the people walking around the parking lot and assumed it was okay.
2. Massive crowds and lines — this would be okay if it was well organized, but the shape of the venue was terrible! People were standing in line but you couldn’t tell what they were in line for… it was hard to get up to the booths to even see what you could potentially sample. I think I was waiting in lines or crowds more than I was really experiencing the chocolate.
3. They only gave each person 5 tickets for the price of admission. If you exclude the wine cost, that’s more than a dollar for maybe half a piece of chocolate. (I went up to a booth and asked if I could try two… after I already picked up the second, she asked for my last ticket. Boo.) It felt kind of like a rip-​off.
4. The Bella Luna VIP was hardly VIP. It was roped off, and you could only enter once. There were no seats to hang out. We were told there would be some small snacks. We waited, and it never came. The unlimited sampling was nice though.
5. Many of the booths ran out early… like two hours before the event was scheduled to end. I understand this isn’t a fault of the event planners… but really, it kinda sucked.
6. There were some non-​profit booths that were shoved to the edges of the chocolate area. I feel like if they interspersed those booths between chocolate, the booths would receive more attention and traffic, while reducing the congestion in the chocolate area.
Overall, the idea of the event was ambitious. They had little talks about chocolate and judges that did tastings. They even had a little corner for kids to play, and a live band. Unfortunately, it wasn’t executed very well.
The saving point was probably Kroger giving out insulated bags, and NOT charging tickets for their brownies and chocolate covered strawberries.

This is my first time attending the 5^th annual Cincinnati Chocolate Festival. This was located at the Cintas Center at Xavier University. It is a Non-​Profit Event which Proceeds from the Cincinnati Chocolate Festival will support the Isaac M. Wise Temple Sisterhood.
Admission: $ 7 Discounted Admission at Kroger. $ 10 Admission at the door and Kids 12 & Under FREE. Which includes: 1 admission wristband, 5 tickets for sample tastings, raffle baskets & Kids Zone activities. For additional $ 10.00 you get wine and food sampling from Bella Luna.
There were chocolate tastings from local Vendors (set up in 10×6 booths.), live cooking demonstrations and competition judging took place in the Banquet Room (celebrity chef demonstrations, live vendor competition judging, contests, raffle baskets). Last there was a Kid’s Zone for children’s activities.
This is what I sampled:
–Snap Snap Truck (Tried the Caramel Sea Salt Cupcake)
–Aglamesis Brothers (Coconut chocolate)
–Maverick Chocolate Co. (a sample of the dark chocolate)
–Jenny’s Homemade Cookies (chocolate chip cookie)
–Three B’s Sweets (Milk chocolate better buckeyes)
My favorite was the Snap Snap Truck cupcakes. Some vendors was also selling their products if you wanted to take some home.
I was not pleased with this event. I bought a groupon which includes the wine and food sampling at Bella Luna.
The groupon line was extremely long (we waited 50 minutes to get in) and had no organization.
It was only 1:30 p.m. (event just started) and Bella Luna was already out of their pasta salad and cheese. I didn’t want to wait another hour or two for them to cater more in. I did however got to sample all four red wines (a shot size in a small cup). What I only got to sample from them was the mozerella bruschetta, a piece of bread and cheese. That was not worth $ 10.00.
There was no line formation and people were cutting us off. Basically looked like a herd of cattle. So annoying.
Vendors were offerering small samples, but not enough to get a taste. I have a picture that I took from one vendor (my husband used his ticket for this) that gave us 3 small nerd/​pebble size chocolates. What a rip off. I wasn’t expecting regular serving sizes of cupcakes, cookies or chocolates. But alittle upset to get a crumb from a cookie.
The only good thing I got from this event was a insulated freezer shopping bag from Kroger.
Glad my funds went towards a great cause.
I will not return to this event next year. The chocolate was good, but there was no organization what so ever.

This year’s event is not worth going. The samples are pittyfull small. Kroger was the only one that gave out generous portion even without requiring a ticket! And the Kroger brownies were the best tasting items!
There was not much organization. There were too many people and at each booth is about 20 min wait. Then, all we get is a small sample.
Unfortunately, this event is not worth while going. Although it is a good cause, if there is not much value, I would not recommend.

We had a good time but probably won’t go again. The cause is awesome and the vendors had some great things. The demos were fun but for me the crowds are not worth it. We were there before it opened and it was super crowded with confusing lines everywhere no one knew who was waiting for what and who was trying to get by. Also I got sweeted out before the end and we even took most of our samples home and I am a huge dessert person. We also had the VIP ticket experience with the wine tasting. It was just ok for us. Neat idea but the place was packed.

I know the 3-​star rating may ruffle some feathers, but I’ll explain and hopefully you’ll understand my reasoning.
I’ve been going to the Cincinnati Chocolate Festival for the past few years and it has simultaneously gotten better and worse.
It’s gotten bigger but with this has also come some problems. First off, the ticket price has not changed but how many tickets you get for the price keeps going down. Secondly, with the bigger size also comes the problems of vendors not being properly ready for this and lines being impossible to navigate.
Vendors shouldn’t sell out within the first hour — if they can’t prepare for this properly then don’t come.
Secondly, there were no clear lines and when there was it spanned past multiple booths, making it impossible to just jump in for one without being in line past several. Despite wrapping around the basketball stadium the table spacing should have been done a lot better.
The vendors who DID come prepared were amazing and completely worth it — Chocolats Latour, Cupcake Crazy, Graeter’s, Krogers, so on and so forth. I would have liked to have seen more local chocolate vendors and fewer booths completely unrelated to sweets/​food but the ones there more than made up for it. These folks alone were worth a 5-​star rating.
There are also chef demos and things but I have never felt they were worth it. A new addition this year was a wine and chocolate pairing thing that looked amazing, however I had kids with me and could not participate.
I’ll still keep coming back — the chocolates are completely worth putting up with the problems.

Love that they had sooo many different booths. I deducted one star mostly because I thought it was a little over priced, though I should have bought tickets from Krogers.

I feel like I can sin a bit more now because I have already visited heaven. This might be the best event I have ever been to in Cincinnati. Being in the company of a lifelong friend, chocolate, coffee, wine, light apps, and walking might have just saved me $ 500 in therapy sessions. We got there at the beginning and parking was easy. We waited a short minute to enter due to the line. My friend had pre purchased the tickets at Krogers, in addition to extra tickets for more sampling. (Even more genius, she brought Ziplock bags to put extra samples in. She is like a best friend, mom, therapist and Girl Scout leader in one.) We entered and got our wristbands as well as tickets you use to get your samples.
The first taste was amazing. It was a chocolate, honey and blue cheese sample on a light crisp. The table was sponsored by Krogers, and it took me 2 samples to register the flavors because I would never have thought to pair them together. The third sample was just to ensure I made the right conclusion. The explosion of flavors and textures made me realize I would be thinking about this flavor for the next few nights to come. After tripping over a double stroller and being elbowed by a 4 year old, we tried Gigi’s cupcakes. It was incredible and I fully expected Willy Wonka to take us down the river next. We sampled coffees, chocolate infused balsamic vinegar, basil chocolate, tea chololate, chocolate fondu, chocolate covered fruits, chocolate ice cream, cappuccino chocolates, salted caramel chocolates, chocolate covered pecans, chocolate mousse in a little cup topped with a raspberry and even more I can’t remember. It reminded me of the shrimp business in Forest Gump. There was water to purchase along the way, which we took full advantage of. It was only $ 1 a bottle. One of my favorites was a fenced off area with more savory selections. It was an addition $ 10 entry fee, but it also included pairings with wine. We had white chocolate infused baba gannoush with pomegranate seeds on it. I was unsure at first and though my mouth betrayed me with the first bite, but it was amazing. As was the chocolate covered candied bacon, the chocolate infused chicken over polenta, and the braised beef over potatoes. Then we hit the wine tables and tried some brute rose. Delicious! I started to wish I had worn my yoga pants. You could try up to 4 wines, but the sparkling beverage hit the spot.
That area also had the cooking demonstrations, contests, as basket raffles (tickets were extra). All in all– this event was phenomenal and I can’t wait for next year. I also picked up quite a few reusable grocery bags that are insulated. It was a terrific event and although busy, the workers were friendly and did a great job keeping things moving.

Oh my gosh! What do you get when you combine an amazing friend, decadent chocolate and just enough delicious savories to balance the sugar high? Cincinnati Chocolate Festival! After first buying the admission tickets at Krogers, we swiftly moved through the entry lines to get in and get at seemingly all foods made from the cacao bean. The biggest surprises were the chocolate & cheese combo served on a crackers and the candied bacon dipped in dark chocolate (I don’t even like bacon either). Never would I have ordered either of these anywhere, but they were a sumptuous surprise! Besides the wine pairings, all the money went to worthy causes. I’m already thinking that I might wear something in a dark chocolate brown color when I go next year! All in all a fun and perfect day!

Do you love chocolate? Then you must attend this event! This is a great event that raises money for charity– and you can spend an afternoon celebrating everything chocolate. If you pre-​buy at Kroger, it was $ 5, or $ 7 at the door, and this gets you an entrance wristband and 5 sampling tickets. A canned good could be donated for an extra ticket, or else you can buy additional tickets for $ 1 each. There were many local vendors offering samples, with full-​sized things to buy. Celebrity chef demos (and you could taste for the cost of a ticket). Tickets could also be used for gift basket raffles. Plenty of fun activities for kids such as cookie stacking.
I actually showed up later in the day, so there were no lines, and it was not very crowded. It’s definitely a good idea to pre-​buy the tickets to save money. My hands down favorite sample was the chocolate covered cheese; who would have thought? Unfortunately the cheesecake on a stick went quickly. I do wish we had unlimited sampling and didn’t have to deal with the tickets, but this probably helped them raise more money.
Overall, I had a good time enjoying chocolate treats, and would attend next year.

Grab your umbrella because once a year it rains chocolate at Cintas Center. (Sorry, had to get the «chocolate rain» meme in here somehow.)
Great event in a much better format/​layout than last year. I had the opportunity to work the Unilocal booth here and it was great to introduce lots of new people to Unilocal app and thankfully the free WiFi at Cintas enabled fast downloads. I was able to sample a few of the businesses and found the the salted carmel from Nordstrom’s, the chocolate covered cheese, and the bourbon chocolate to be my favs. But honestly, its pretty hard to mess up chocolate, and there were lots more that I tried and enjoyed.
*Tips: save time and hassle by getting your tickets ahead of time at Krogers. 5 tickets are probably enough especially if you can share with those in your group. Heck, Nordstrom’s booth let you have 3 pieces of chocolate for 1 ticket.
Arrive early and be prepared for some crowds. Wander around and plan which vendors will satisfy your sweet tooth. You probably could be in and out in under an hour. If you want to break it up a little, the banquet hall had tables and chairs to recover from the chocolate overload.
This year had plenty of entertainment and activities for the little ones, from Zak Morgan’s music to cookie stacking competitions.
Definitely check this out next year if you missed it.

A great event this year!
I was incredibly disappointed in last year’s event. They put about 50 booths giving away chocolate, a raffle area, and a demo area into one room. You couldn’t move (or stuff your face) without tripping over another person. If you went last year and were turned off, try it again next year. They fixed all the issues!
Lines went incredibly fast this year. No more standing outside for 45 minutes.
Festival wound its way in a circle surrounding the basketball arena. It was crowded, but not miserable. I arrived when it opened and easily navigated my way through quickly.
Chocolate samples were a good size! Graeters was giving away 2 chocolates for one ticket! Krogers had HUGE chocolate covered cherries. The Lexington Booth had amazing dutch apple bourbon balls!!!
Even 5 tickets will get you enough that you will be sick of chocolate. I recommend going with friends that don’t mind sharing so that you can try more items. I would think that this would be an incredible hit with kids as well.
Demonstrations and judging wasn’t great… I wouldn’t waste my time sitting around watching these. The activities going on in the kid zone looked like a lot of fun though.
Put this on your calendar for next year!

This was a must attend for chocolate lovers (mark your calendars for next year) and supports a charitable cause. Local chocolatiers and confectionaries were present with samples and full size products available for purchase.
Each attendee was given 5 tasting tickets with attending fee ($ 5 in advance, $ 7 at the door) and one extra ticket in exchange for a canned good. Extra tickets were available for $ 1 each. Each sampling ticket could also be used to attend an taste a demonstration item or for a bottle of water. Each ticket could also be used to potentially win a raffle prize.
There were so many great vendors that it was difficult to determine where to use the tickets. Some of the items a loved were salted chocolate caramels and cheesecake on a stick. There was definitely something there for every chocolate lover. I will be back next year!