Pocono Garlic Festival

This is the first time we attended the Garlic Festival. We drove about an hours as it sounded like it would be fun. Instead it was a huge disappointment. As one person already pointed out this was nothing more than a street fair that you paid $ 12.50 per person to get into. It was crowded with people pushing to get a few free samples. You would think people never ate before. Lines to get other food which was very expensive, seemed like for the basic snack it was $ 5, chocolate dipped garlic one piece was $ 1, a bottle of garlic mustard or garlic infused vinegar $ 10. Not much shade and if you got something to eat forget getting a table to sit at to enjoy you meal as these were all taken, so plan to sit with the ticks in the grass. Just save your money unless you are desperate to blow $$$ to visit a few disgusting portable toilets.

Definitely not worth the $ 12.50 admission. Some interesting booths sprinkled around and the music was good, but the whole thing was too small and too crowded. Some of the vendors’ reckless hawking of the medicinal properties of their concoctions made me a little uncomfortable. Can’t see how anyone would spend two days here.

Disappointed with this festival, especially the $ 12.50 admission fee. Have been to other Garlic festivals (Easton) where it is free and there are many more garlic growers with more unusual varieties. Food was expensive and typical «carnival» food, $ 8 for small cup of macaroni/​cheese, $ 8 for ½ of a grilled cheese sandwich, very few garlic themed food.
The area is beautiful & the venue is in a lovely setting. Live music was good. Will skip this one in the future. We got thru the entire fair in less than 2 hrs, meandering thru slowly.

First time Gaelic festival goers. We were in the area and chance upon signs featuring the festive — since 1994. The tickets was $ 10 at the door but 7.00 pre sale Online. this festival is no different from a typical street fair. When we were there we get enough lucky to see garlic eating festival — the winner had 1 minute to eat over a quarter pound of raw Garlic. We ate garlic ice cream, garlic funnel cakes and garlic chocolate chip cookies. Bring gum guys!

2013 Pocono Garlic Fest was a great success, first time garlic loving fest goers, we snagged, for a kind sorta penny, some most equisite highly acclaimed cloves and bunches of that sweet sweet herb! Amazing garlic snacks everywhere, garlic funnel cake and kettlecorn. the delights were everywhere. We will be attending next year’s and im so happy I stocked up on garlic for the fall and winter. a loved that it was a little crowded too!

Nice way to spend a couple of hours in the afternoon. I didn’t have very high expectations for the event and it met them. As stated by Kevin below, it did feel like carnival food with garlic added but there were some people who really made a good effort to do some interesting quality things with it (I liked the hot pepper garlic jam and garlic honey vinegar the most). Many vendors selling crafts and food, including jarred goods and garlic cloves. I look forward to seeing the even grow over the coming years and become a more serious event.

Just a pure money grab. 10 per person to enter a festival cost me 40 dollars family of four. prices inside just too excessive. 12 dollars for a bag of kettle popcorn 5 dollars for a can of Budweiser, 3.50 for a corn on the cob. what a rip off. I would have been better off spending my day and money in the Stroud’s mall food court. at least there I would not have felt like everyone was trying to rob me. I WOULD NEVER GO BACK TO THAT FESTIVAL. save your time and money. Don’t even consider this festival.

A day of my life I’ll never get back. What a waste!
This event is sponsored by the Pocono Garlic Growers Association. Reading the material leads one to believe it purpose is to showcase garlic and its uses.
Maybe it’s just me but if you want to promote a thing, it would probably be a good idea to showcase that thing. Taking typical unappealing carnival food and adding garlic just don’t get it. It simply creates unappealing garlicky carnival food. They would have been much better served enlisting some local chefs to prepare real food showcasing garlic.
Given this event was sponsored by the Garlic Growers Association, I expected more representation from those farms but only saw a few and with limited varieties.
The only positive thing I can say about this event was that the music presented throughout the day (Saturday) was actually quite good.
The problem here was that this was not a festival, it was a street fair. A street fair with a $ 10 a head admission fee!
As it happened, Stroudsburg was having a street fair the same day and from what I saw of that as it was breaking down, our time would have been better spent on main street at that one.