Great Meadow Foundation

Understand their will be Thoroughbred racing their Sept 20^th
Can not find publicity on this event.
Is Plains keeping it a secret.

The fireworks festival was really fun people watching and the parking is plentiful. This year was our first time going (family of five and a neighbor family of 4) It’s a little pricey ($ 40 per car) for what you get, which is a seat in the grass and exposure to a lot of food trucks (more money). I would give this event 4 stars if they did a couple of things differently: 1) Limit the amount of time that the annoying announcer spends on the intercom. He made it difficult to completely enjoy the experience with too many interruptions and commentary when none was needed. 2) the air «shows» were reigned in a little. I mean, how many rockets can you watch shoot into the sky before you just don’t care anymore? How many times can you watch little helicopters circle a field and hover up and down? Now I know thanks to Great Meadow. 3) The field demonstrations were more spread out. You have a viewing area for which you charge (near lot #9 I think) but we couldn’t see the field events, like polo demonstrations, the soccer ball thing, water spraying, etc. Maybe some signs or notice on your site that not all activities are visible from certain lots.
It’s a great mix of people, from sophisticated, well-​heeled members to teenagers in shorts and bowties and everything in between. It would be great to see more vendors, too.

The Virginia Wine & Food Festival needs help. They sold Groupon tickets (2 for the price of one plus) w/​a wine glass, wine samples, and seminars, but wait just a minute, everyone who goes there gets that as well! The check-​in line was also completely disorganized with their special ticketing (i.e. Groupon vouchers), meaning, the line where you had already purchased a ticket and the line where you needed to purchase a ticket flew by while the line moved at a snails pace for this line.
I was surprised at the lack of effort most of the vineyards took in describing their wines; literally had newbie employees just ask us «would you like a sample?» (no further comment); some attendees were handling their wine like it was a keg party and others weren’t even interested in the description of the wine, they said «just pour.» There was food: it was pizza, bbq, thai, fried galore, italian, and nothing special… so like a fairground feel. There were some cute jewelry, clothing, and craft foods there, but also lots of window treatment sales there.
It didn’t help that Saturday was pouring. We picked up one bottle from a place that actually felt like they cared about their wines, but ditched early to head to our fav wine spot down the road.
Summary: This is NOT the place to go for people who want to learn about wine or actually enjoy wine (aka wine snobs). It was 20 & 30-​year olds trying to see how quickly they could get drunk = a hot mess

I really am a fan of this venue, and if it weren’t for the utter lack of network service available, I would have easily rated Great Meadow as 5 star. To be fair, I attended the Spring Gold Cup, which brought thousands of people in their horse race hats, loud pants, bow ties, dresses, and shoes that struggled in the mud taking endless amounts of selfies and posting and what-​not, so it was understandable. However, it was ridiculous to have full network strength and not be able to connect to anything the entire time… I too had pictures to post! I am pumped to return in a couple of weeks to attend a polo match, taking care of two, never-​before-​seen horse events in my life (race and polo). I’m pretty sure that I will have cell coverage then because the crowds are much smaller, because it’s also not as phenomenal as the races. BTW — I didn’t come across a single person at the races to actually watch the race. Incredibly, I could only see about 15 seconds of the race because I could only watch the horses when they came around the bend in front of our tent. Personally, I can’t wait to come back in the Fall for the more laid back Gold Cup, and then again next Spring in some ridiculously loud and obnoxious outfit. That will happen.

Loved it here for the Virginia Gold Cup 2014… The ground was especially soft when I passed out from too much drinking… Can’t remember specifics but I really enjoyed myself, I think…

Great Meadow is easy to get to as it is right off 66. It plays host to various events throughout the seasons. I have attended multiple Gold Cup Races and Scottish Games here over the years.
It’s a great space and they will have plenty of staff and police presence to make sure events run smoothly.
I wish they would cut the grass in the parking lots and surrounding fields a little better though. Wading through grass a foot tall to get to the main event is messy and itchy.

The 38^th Virginia Wine Festival was held here this past weekend. The Plains is a great location for this event. The lines for each winery appear to be long, but they move at a decent pace. I like this wine fest a lot better than Great Grapes in Reston. There’s a a good selection of food trucks and the weather couldn’t be beat.
If you really want to be ‘guaranteed’ a table to sit at, you may want to get VIP tickets, but lots of people just bring blankets and/​or camping chairs, and pack a bag of snacks to enjoy their bottles of wine. No pretension here, just laid back fun.
My husband, friends and I really like this event. I think Unilocal should have a booth here (maybe?).

Great Meadow is more well known for horse races like the Virgina Gold Cup but it’s a great place to check out Twilight polo events as well (no, not vampires). The prices are reasonable and tickets are by the car rather than per person. You can bring your own food and alcohol which makes for a fun party. The actual polo area was much tinier than a standard polo area (according to my dad –this was my first polo event). The tickets say you cannot bring in glass containers but almost everyone had wine bottles and beer bottles and no one bothered them. If you run out of wine, there is a local winery that sells bottles that aren’t bad. Go check it out!

This review is for Twilight Polo on Saturday nights. $ 30 for a car-​full of friends, and you can bring in whatever booze and food you want. You don’t need to be a fan of polo, or really understand anything about the game — its easy to learn and you’re having so much fun, the fancy-​horses are a great accessory.
Notes for next time: no dress code, the range of attendees is all over the map; bring chairs and a table — some people had impressive spreads; come early to get a good spot; if you can hire a car of the evening, it makes the drive back to DC easier; there’s a dance party that starts once the polo play finishes (10ish?) — so they keep the party going post-​fancy-​horses.
All in all, a great evening, highly recommended!

Around May through September, Great Meadow hosts the Twilight Polo series. There are two polo matches with the first one starting at about 7 PM and the second one starting at about 8:30 PM. I THINK you can arrive any time but the gates open at 6:30 PM. Our group of seven arrived at about 7 PM. I think that’s about as late as you’d want to arrive if you’re bringing your own picnic for a good spot to sit.
It is $ 30 per car and so I packed in all my friends into the biggest car I can find. woop woop for SUVs! You can buy your tickets at the gate or online.
Do bring picnic blankets, coolers, tables, lawn chairs. If you forgot your picnic basket, there’s food for sale so don’t worry about starving.

We had a great time here on the 4^th and all the activities and vendors were fun to visit. As another reviewer has mentioned, there was a crazy mob mentality trying to leave after the show, but we were patient and just went with the flow.

Great Meadow was completely in my blind spot. But our neighbors turned us onto the fireworks display they were putting on for the 4^th, amongst other things. It was $ 20 per car load up to 6 people. Bring your own food and drink. Besides the fireworks there was some live music, a demonstration Polo match, 3 separate helicopter parades, and about 30 launches of rockets by the local rocket builders society. For all the extras and avoiding the hassle of going to DC, this was a fantastic spot to watch the fireworks. My only issue was the mob scene that occurred trying to leave the area.
I will definitely find an opportunity to go back for one of their other functions.

My friend and I came here for the first time for their 4^th of July event and I must admit I was pretty impressed. The place is full of vendors and food (overpriced) if you’re willing to spend the money. We had plenty of room to setup to have our own tented area. We went at around 3:30pm and parked pretty close to the front. There were about 6 families with us and we all brought tons of folding chairs, 1 long table and of course a tent. It was very hot so make sure to bring lots of water, beach umbrella and/​or tent for some shade. The event was very family oriented which I loved and as expected, the place was pretty packed. Tons of things to do for kids (i.e. puppet show, bouncers, etc). It’s a day to be with family, so you have a choice of watching the shows they have on the field or you can entertain yourselves with games brought from home. Fireworks Show was scheduled for 9pm but they didn’t start until around 9:30pm. I would definitely go back again. But next time, we’ll probably bring another tent and table since we filled up our table with tons of Filipino food. =)

Nice horse track, plenty of things to do. That is, if they involve drinking. I went for Gold Cup at the beginning of the month and was impressed. over 20,000 people in attendance, all filed in, no real lines for the bathrooms, and everyone just absolutely piss drunk. Oh, and hot. Very hot.
I don’t remember how I got there since I was too busy partying on the bus on the way over and on the way back so don’t ask me for directions. I’ll just say that if you’re into day drinking and taking trips with your friends that make no sense (you’ll go to the races but won’t see a horse all day unless you’re on one of the rails or members hill), then this place is for you!

Great Meadow is an open space where a lot of cool and fun activities take place. From the Gold Cup (which I have never attended — to the Vintage Virginia wine festival (which I have been to several times when it was at Great Meadow).
Easy to get to from either Interstate 66 (I-​66) or U.S. 17.