Scottsdale Culinary Festival

This was a fun little festival. We were visiting from California and decided to check it out. The food we tried was good and the beer fest had a lot of great beers. The reason for the lower rating is because I think it was a bit over priced. Paying for a bunch of tickets and then the samples all being several tickets maybe it so we couldn’t try all the things we wanted to try. I think a pay one price option or making all samples one ticket option would have been more reasonable. We also had an issue with getting in to the beer fest. We bought entry at a ticket booth but wasn’t accurate I guess and it took a lot of hassles to get the situation rectified. Overall was worth the visit. Wouldn’t go back at the current rates though.

The culinary festival had tons of awesome vendors, but was not well prepared for the crowd. While I understand they have no way of knowing how many people will show up, it almost seemed like the crowding was intentional. IF you paid the $ 50 dollars to get into the «Sky Tent» you were able to have shade, good music, get real drinks, and have a good time. If you simply general admission, you had the choice of beer or energy drinks, not many places for shade, and a line that lasted about 30 minutes for the ONE place the served liquor.
I wish they would have just said you basically have to pay the extra $ 50 if you want to enjoy yourself, and I would have come with friends who weren’t cheap. Lesson learned. Please put more emphasis on what you get with the Sky tent next year, Pleaseeeeeeee.

I stumbled upon this event on a recent trip to Arizona and the Scottsdale area. And what a pleasant surprise!
Since I had never been to Scottsdale, I was wandering around the Old Town area and saw a small sign advertising the event. And figured what the hell, why not check it out. $ 10 to get in and the proceeds go to charity.
And dang was I WOW’d. From the outside it looked like a small venue and not a lot to offer. I had no clue what this event was even about… maybe some food stands and live music. Boy was there ever! There were multiple music stages with some really good live music. Plop your butt on the lawn and enjoy the flow of the day and the music.
Stop by some of the food stands grab some grub. You have a wide variety folks so no chance that you will go home hungry. We lucked out too, at the end of the evening some of the food vendors were trying to get rid of the food so that it would no go to waste so they were offering more food for less.
There was beer and wine. Even a special area for wine tasting.
Unilocal had a booth at the event. By the time that I figured that fact out and then eventually zeroed in on the map where the booth was located… the booth was empty and no one was there for me to give them a Unilocaly High Five from this San Diegan.
Parking was not the easiest. However I lucked out and got stellar FREE parking. And if you went during the day there is a free trolley that services the downtown area that you could trolley it to the festival.

What a great & fun way to spend a day during Spring in AZ outside. I come to the Culinary Festival every year & it never disappoints. All types/​kind of foods, drinks & desserts. Even items you can take home if you want. There is something for everyone & also this year had a kids zone with bounce houses. Keep in mind this is picnic style event & has been this way for years… not supposed to be fancy culinary style. Can’t wait to come back next year, one of my favorite festivals held in AZ.

Much busier this year as compared to the last time I came 3 yrs ago. More vendors also. Some of the vendors can charge on the pricier end requiring 7+ more tickets. There should be more sample size portions for 5 tickets or less. I liked that they had more beverage stations this time, so you didn’t have to walk to far to quench your thirst! One request: can we get more vegetarian/​Vegan options! Weather was perfect, music was fun, had a great time.

Made my debut at the picnic on Sunday and this is a very affordable day out. Admission was 2 for $ 10 with discount and parking was free in Old Town. The biggest line was for Thrifty Ice Cream in a waffle cone, but most of the other vendors had little or no lines. The portions are either $ 2 or $ 6 and the best items on this day sampled were lasagna from Avanti, Garlic Knots from Crust and cold beer of course. Three different music stages with low level bands, but it was a sunny, not so hot day and plenty of room to sit on the lawn. You could enter a bunch of «extra fee» areas, but really you have all you need with general admission. This was a pretty fun afternoon and the crowd was mixed, so it wasn’t a drunkfest and that was a good thing.

The Culinary Festival is always a fun time! The beer garden was great this year! They had a good variety of beer from big names like Sam Adams to local beers from Arizona. We purchased the picnic tickets that get you into multiple tents but we stayed mostly in the beer garden. It was more laid back and calm.
I love that they had a tiny Sky Vodka tent in the picnic grounds. It was very easy to get to and they had such delicious drinks! The signs were easy to see and has great descriptions of the ingredients!
The Unilocal tent was also fun! We got cute beer coozies and a epic Unilocal photo.
The festival is a crazy busy time but always worth it!

Perfect setting, good food, cocktails and music. We’re looking forward to next time.

If you can handle the large crowds it’s worth while. Lots of drink choices and food. Small to no lines just a lot of people to walk around.

This was my first time going to this festival and it was a nice environment for the most part (had a variety of different food tents and even a Francis Coppola wine tasting tent) but be prepared to blow some money. First off, parking for the event cost $ 20 (luckily we ubered it there). Next is the $ 10 cost of admission. Then once you’re in, you’ll have to buy tickets ($ 1=1 ticket) to purchase foods/​drinks. A beer is 6 tickets, slice of pizza is 4, mixed drink is 7, funnel cake is 6. So as you can see, cost adds up quickly. But it is for charity, so that helps lessen the blow on my wallet. Some of the food tents (longhorn steakhouse and roka akor) were actually pretty good too. I’d skip any of the pizza tents because the slices were cold.

This is basically your excuse to gorge out on small portions of food and day drink til your liver begs for forgiveness. Here’s a secret, park at the LPH Church on Indian School/​Miller for a measly $ 5 and get your exercise of walking less than 50 feet to the entrance. Do bring your entire ATM because it is costly BUT everything goes to support our arts and charity!!! You need tickets for everything! And contrary to the bar staff, you cannot take your drink purchased from the Beverage tent inside the SKYY tent. The beer festival is an additional $ 30 for all you-​can-​sample in the token mug, basically the size of a tea cup. Otherwise, stop at all the booths for cool gadgets or pop in demo shows and sample delish culinary delights from faves like Chef Eddie of Eddie’s House. For future reference, buy admission tickets on Groupon or Living Social ahead for two tickets at $ 9!!!

Surprised to see the poor reviews. When I spoke to the guy at the Unilocal tent he told us the reviews had not been great from the day before, maybe it was just better on Sunday?
I think the admission price was reasonable, and for most places the number of tickets/​cost for food was reasonable as well. It was pretty crowded when we went, but not terrible like you can barely move crowds. Some places had very long lines, but most of them seemed to have little to no line which was nice! The live music was good, I heard there were complaints that it was too loud, but I did not experience this.
There was a good variety of restaurants there, though I would have liked to see a few more healthy/​vegan/​vegetarian options. I think my favorite things I tried were garlic knots from Crust, and the sample pops from Paletas Betty. I am glad I went, would gladly return next year.

Love that ALL of our money spent here, while having a ball, goes to supporting local Arts!

Fun event, admission price was reasonable and food booth prices are less than sitting at a bar in downtown Scottsdale. Lots of people having a good time like a beer garden in Munich.
Listening to @youngcountry at @Barefoot stage.

Expect long lines and to spend a lot, especially if you go to the beer garden. Great event and lots of fun.

I really miss this festival ! It used to be the best thing going here in Scottsdale. I had friends from back east plan their trips to Scottsdale around this festival. I’m sad that its deteriorated so much just over the last three or four years. It’s become such a corporate, money making conglomerate that they’ve gotten away from what it’s supposed to be, a culinary festival. I’ll pass for now but if you do choose to go, take money. Lots and lots of money. And set your expectations low. Very, very low

Always a fun time! A great time to meet up with friends and taste all the great beers & food around the Scottsdale.

I vaguely recall when this was a good event.
What were the issues:
— its $ 10 to get in to the event and another $ 10 to enter the beer garden and for that you get nothing. Tickets are extra for all tastings and what they want per tasting is pretty absurd. There are so many other culinary type events in the valley where you may pay more up front but get out in the end for less. We could have gone out for a really nice meal for what we ended up paying here.
— The quality of the food was just mediocre at best. I cannot think of one provider that made any sort of impression on me… nothing terrible, nothing great.
— Is this a family event or is this a plastic, Scottsdale, wannabe night club in the middle of a park event? It blows my mind the way some of the people show up… are they doing the walk of shame from the night before or are they getting ready for their next walk of shame?
— Speaking of which… who thought having Zowie Bowie play in front of a bunch of families on a Sunday afternoon would be a good idea? Was it a way of showing girls the opposite of what they should aspire to be when they grow up? I have no issue with them as a band and saw them more than once at Barcelona… but not a classy choice for this event at all. They should have stayed in Vegas.
— Placement of booths around the main stage… there was very little shade, so who was the genius that placed booths between the shade and the stage?
The one part of the event that was pretty decent was the beer garden. They had a nice selection of vendors, the people that worked the booths were great, good bands, and there was ample shade and seating.
This was our last year at this event… from now on we are going to Devoured instead.

We got an awesome deal on living Social for tickets to this event… $ 4.50 per person. HOWEVER, none of us in our group realized that only covered the entrance fee and none of the food. (you have to buy tickets in order to taste any of the food samples)
I just wish we would have known about that and we would have brought cash (most of us are just plastic carriers) There were ATMS everywhere, but you know you’re gonna be charged stupid fees for using them… it was just frustrating.
HOWEVER… 5 stars goes to many of the Vendors… we met some great people and found awesome products like Il Nero Olive Oil (AWESOME PEOPLE… will be buying from them again in the future!) and Kyocera Advanced Ceramics to name only a couple…
It was fun, and I know it was for charity, but I’m not sure I would pay to go again, even if the entrance was only 4 bucks.

This Festival will get its fair share of hateful reviews, but you know what? I like it. Not an «I Like It and I Want To Go Every Year» kind of like, but more of an «I Like It and Would Go Every Other Year» kind of like. It is great for people watching so you really don’t have to spend a ton of money to have a good time. It’s $ 10 to get in and if you don’t get wasted or pig out then you can get by with spending only $ 20 inside. Yes, almost all of the vendors are over priced and the food can be rather pedestrian (too many chain restaurants for my liking), but you can find a few tent gems that are offering good food at a reasonable price. Yesterday I got a big $ 6 BBQ plate, $ 2 for two tacos, a big order of stromboli for $ 5, $ 2 mac n’ cheese, and a $ 6 16oz. Coors Light. Don’t worry, I spread that out over about 6 hours (with a midday break at Patties for a few beers).
One big improvement this year is doing away with the tickets and switching over to a debit card for all of your food and drink purchases. Much easier. One bummer, it is the same tents year after year. It makes it kinda boring.
Tips on making it better:
Why not have a section for new restaurants at the Culinary Festival? Like a whole stretch of tents for all the first time restaurants appearing at the GAP. I don’t know, I think this is a great idea if I may say so. And I know this sounds lame, but some of the prices at these tents are ridiculously high. Why set your prices so high at an event like this when you can possibly attract new customers to your actual restaurant. Seems like a bad business decision to me.
It will always crack me up when I see girls dressed in club attire and six inch high heels for this event. Why?!? You are walking around a food festival and there is no way you are comfortable in that shit! Hysterical. Please don’t change, Scottsdale!