The Festival

We went to a festival yesterday. As we were leaving the house, I was pretty excited about it too. It was the annual Dogwood Festival held in downtown Fayetteville. The newspaper made it sound pretty amazing: tens of thousands attended last year, Hootie and the Blowfish were playing at 8pm, there were booths, food, rides, and games galore. Now, who doesn't need some good ol' greasy festival food every now and again?

We found parking with no problem and only had to walk about a block before we were there. Things were looking good, but that would soon change. It was far too crowded to be enjoyable, imagine the normal width of a city street, add in booths lining each side, and finish it with elbow to elbow people. I don't think I made it more than about three steps in a row without someone bumping into me. People were pushier and ruder than I ever remember too. I know not everyone will understand this comment, but people were worse than travelers waiting to board Ryan Air. Needless to say, the Husband wasn't comfortable at all, crowds have not been his friend since returning from Iraq.

Most of the craft booths were selling really trashy home-made crap. There really isn't a better way to put it. The stuff was horrible. And, the food lines were all really, really long. But, we figured since we were there we would check out the concert venue. "Are they serious!" was my initial reaction. If we actually wanted to see the band we would have to be within about thirty feet of the stage, an area which was already packed with people two and a half hours before the headlining act. The stage was in the middle of a three lane street and there was no room to spread out, only back and at about thirty-five feet there was a big lighting tent that no one could see around. Not well planned.

Something else that I noticed is that there was no one selling beer. What the heck kind of festival does not have a beer tent? I am not a huge beer drinker, but I became very accustomed to the normalcy of the German fest which always had beer. But, that's not it either. I think that every other festival that I have ever been to has had a beer tent. Especially those with a concert involved. It was just not normal to not see any beer.

Well, I was sorely disappointed by the whole hour (maybe) that we were at the festival, but we did grab a bag of blue cotton candy at a lightly patronized booth on our way out. Mmmm the joy of pure sugar! We ended up skipping Hootie for Taco Bell, a movie and ice cream. V for Vendeta was fabulous and with Cold Stone added in for dessert the evening could not have been better.