Hormel Black Label Bacon Fest

I was super excited about coming here this year because last years was AWESOME! But I was quite disappointed. The bacon at the entrance tasted fine but they were all soggy. The layout was great, beer was ON POINT! but… The food was definitely not… most of the items were strait up chunks of fatty pork belly. The first few were good but it got exhausting after 7 or so. Only a few food vendors served crispy bacon, thank god they were there or I would’ve rated 2 stars. Also, they didn’t have ATMs on site, which was unfortunate because I really wanted to buy some beer caddy’s and shirts! :(oh well next year I’ll know better.

My wife and I have been to Bacon Fest all three years and I have to say, this year they really nailed it. 2013 was a work in progress as you can see by previous reviews, but 2015 was obviously well planned out. The samples lasted to the end (a couple vendors were running low though), and the beer never stopped flowing. Can’t wait for next year as I’m sure it’ll only be even better. Good place to go to enjoy good food, beer and music with family and friends.

I first want to start by pointing out that I have attended the 2013, 2014 and now 2015 event. Most people are right when they first started in 2013 they did not know what they were doing, a whole lot of people drop the ball. They definitely learned their lesson and got things right in 2014 and by far this year’s event in 2015 has been their best yet .
the 2015 hormel bacon fest was so much fun. What’s not to love. Beer and endless bacon. Well almost endless. Some vendors did run out towards the very end of the event but I think that’s only because some people came back for seconds and thirds, ppl are naturally greedy. Definitely worth it to do the VIP experience. You get in an hour before the general public and you don’t have to wait in line for that first hour. Once the general public get let in the lines are about 20 people long.

Amazing event! Use promo code SDVILLE to save $ 5 per ticket!

My best friend and I went it was the best event of the summer for us!!! I will be going again next year so much fun and good food and beer OMG!!!

What an amazing event! So much better than last year. Bacon was amazing. Venues were awesome! Delicious beer! The organizers killed it and made the event the way it’s suppose to be. I will definitely be back next year! Thanks Baconfest! Xoxo

Was there last year. There was a big line to get in and it Was crowded but we were able to hit up almost all the vendors. On my way to this year’s event and purchased V.I.P tickets that get you in an hour early.

San Diego Hormel Black Label Bacon Fest is about more than eating tasty fried swine and imbibing delicious local craft brews; it’s about all manner of folk coming together to enjoy live music, San Diego’s classic awesome weather, and what’s more American than that.
In fact, I’ll go one further. If you came to Bacon Fest and did not have an awesome time, you probably have a shrine to Vladimir Lenin in your basement and hate America.

I don’t like giving low star ratings, but this review has been in my drafts for far too long and I figured I’d rather give the low star than let others endure the pain of this event.
Don’t get me wrong… I love the idea of Baconfest for all the joy bacon can bring. But when you wait up until 1AM to buy the tickets and wait with months of anticipation (yea… I might have hyped the event up a bit). I have expectations. I don’t think my expections are unreasonable either.
What I expected and the outcomes.
1. Website stated I’d receive a piece of bacon as I entered — did no happen
2. Bacon to last the entire extent of the event — many vendors ran out an hour early and packed up
3. Water/​drinks aside from beer — My savior was one lemonade vendor where I was a repeat visitor and another vendor did have water with a donation. Water should have been provided by the festival for an event held outside (didn’t help it was one of the hottest days of the summer) and with an event full of salty foods… water should have been a no brainer.
4. $ 60 to easily stroll and get samples — samples took forever to get to, some lines took 20+ minutes… with a timed event, 20 minutes is precious! I could do better at Costco!
All of the above are easy fixes, but without them, this event is doomed.

Ok, so we were given one ticket and I bought the second for below face value. $ 40. With that bring said, I feel we did not get a good value.
It was extremely hot (not their fault, but no shade???) The only place offering water was asking for $ for it. It’s all inclusive, right? Not the water to keep you from getting heat stroke. Which, might I add, both my husband and I got as a door prize.
The food was ‘ok’ some better than others, as usual. The lines were too long. The best alcoholic drink in my opinion was the Angry Orchard Cider. We got a few cups of that. ;)
I think if they want to host this event again they need to host it indoors and offer water to patrons. I also think there should be some sort of wrist band system to rotate the lines. Maybe 4 colors… Each color can be in certain lines from x time to x and so on. Maybe not the best idea, but it’s better than theirs.
It cost us $ 20 each and I wouldn’t pay that much again to be quite frank. You can invite me back for free, and I might consider it, but probably not.
Big let down.

Let me disclaim my review with the fact that I won tickets to this event, so I had no out of pocket expense except the gas to travel to this event. I listened to the radio religiously so that I could win tickets to the event and I was lucky enough to win the tickets, which I am grateful for. I was ecstatic that I could attend the event when I won because I really wanted to go. However, I am glad I didn’t pressure my friends into buying tickets to join me and my husband. I would’ve felt awful!
For a free for me event it was okay. Was it worth $ 60/​person? Absolutely not! I attended the SD Bay Food & Wine Festival last year. Now that’s an event worth paying for! And I don’t really drink wine or beer… for me it’s all about the food!
Here’s the rundown of the event. We arrived at the event on time, maybe even 10 minutes later than the start time. Which was maybe a good thing because I think the lines were just starting to be let in? We saw the PETA protestors, and I must say I’ve never encountered them before, but they were orderly and most importantly QUIET. Quite a contrast to some of the religious protestors we’ve encountered at Comic-​Con with megaphones. Anyways, after we walked past them we went to a line and we were let in shortly after.
We arrived at the event on time, maybe even 10 minutes later than the start time. Which was maybe a good thing because I think the lines were just starting to be let in? We saw the PETA protestors, and I must say I’ve never encountered them before, but they were orderly and most importantly QUIET. Quite a contrast to some of the religious protestors we’ve encountered at Comic-​Con with megaphones. Anyways, after we walked past them we went to a line and we were let in shortly after.
We saw that the first line of vendors didn’t have any food so we walked onto the second row and started making our way to food vendors. Soon we figured out that food vendors were in red tents and beer were being poured at non red tents, in most cases. I did wait briefly in line at a red tent only to discover that it was not food, but beer. So sad. We actually made it to most of the red tents, minus a couple where the lines didn’t seem to move so we moved on, those included a place with tacos, a burger place, Slater’s ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ because we’ve already been to their restaurant, and the corn dog. We missed two that I know of because they ran out of tastings, including the cheesecake!
I thought the most flavorful item was a bacon/​beef meatball from The Gossip Grill. Some of the other tastings we had were: plain bacon, bacon in spicy greens (perhaps arugula?), bacon in lobster bisque (without lobster, just lobster flavored), bacon wrapped stuff jalepeno, half a sausage hot dog thing, and bacon sushi. Hash House had a sausage with polenta and it was really cold and hard. Is polenta supposed to be very cold? This was my first polenta experience and I’m not sure if I just don’t like polenta or if it was just poorly executed. Not much to gush over.
Pro:
Line to get in was quick
We found one unlabeled tent with water at the end before we left
Seemed like a good selection of beer for beer drinkers
Cons of BaconFest 2012:
Long SLOW lines
Lack of shaded areas
Lack of water dispersed throughout area or vendors with non-​alcoholic beverages
Lack of creativity with bacon from vendors
Vendors ran out of food way too early
Music was eh
Much more beer vendors than food vendors… which is okay if it was a beer festival. However this event was called BaconFest, so not okay.
They have a good concept in terms of creating a bacon festival, HOWEVER, the event needs LOTS of work to make it worth $ 60.

Was highly disappointed after organizing a party bus & 30+ participants… ridiculous lines, lack of just even offering water, heavy beers but not enough other beverage offerings, no shade… could be an epic event but clearly lots to learn, We stood in 1.5hr line for a ¼ of a slaters ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ burger, luckily my g/​f walked around and grabbed a few bites of other items to try. All in all i had 1 sip of beer (I didnt think i was going to beerfest) and counted 8 tiny bites of food, 2 miniscule shots of moonshine, and thankfully there was a lemonade vendor b/​c i had about 5 of those.
I had envisioned something similar to the SD Wine & Food Fest… this was not close & to think i paid $ 60 for what amounted to 2 less than thimble shots of moonshine and possibly 8 tiny bites of food. Everyone was literally ready to leave after just 1.5hrs of being there and the consensus was «very disappointed», most everyone agreed it would have been better to stay at my house where we had an awesome pregame party happening.
Unless this is done MUCH differently I wouldn’t bother going to the next one. The SD Wine & food fest for example is like $ 100+ a ticket, but you never stand in more than a 2 minute line for the BEST vendors in San Diego and you’re sure you got your money’s worth!
such great potential, so much excitement and buzz for such a huge let down!

I was looking forward to this event for a long time and in some ways it met my expectations and in others it fell very, very short.
Positives: Great local beer from all over San Diego, variety of vendors with creative food offerings, entrance into event was well-​planned out and very efficient and loved the last band that played as they were super entertaining.
Negatives: NO WATER! Seriously this was one of the hottest days of the year in San Diego and there was no water available for the General Admission people. They had 1 vendor tent with some kind of special water giving out samples but they ran out within the first hour. There wasn’t even water for purchase! This was unacceptable. Anyone in San Diego knows that the end of August is always the hottest time of year, they should have been prepared, even with just huge jugs of water from Costco or something and little Dixie cups. VIP section had water available to them but they ran out at one point even.
Long lines — Now I expected there to be lines, you just have to at events like this, but as their Facebook page advertised them underselling the event and really trying to cut down on time spent in line I thought they wouldn’t be too bad. Not true — for most of the food you would end up waiting in line for 15 minutes at the minimum.
Running out of food — Now I didn’t think it was as bad as some other people’s reviews but maybe that is because my friend and I got there early to get in right at 2 and so were able to get to quite a few food vendors before they all started running out. But I was very disappointed I wasn’t able to try a lot of the food I had seen on their website.
Non-​marked tents — It was very hard to tell what a lot of the vendor tents were as most weren’t marked and you were unsure what you were waiting in line for. This created a lot of confusion and at one point I thought I was waiting in line for a food item and it turned out to be a beer vendor which I didn’t need at the time.
Overall, I would come to this event again if they made sure they offered water for ALL attendees!!! If they somehow could assure vendors wouldn’t run out of food so quickly and if they tried to make the longs not as long or a more organized system.

This was one of the worst things I’ve ever spent money on, and this includes the time I was swindled into buying magazine subscriptions that never came (those bastards!!). If I could give the San Diego Bacon Fest a big fat zero, I would… except it wouldn’t be so fat, and the zero would have left heat-​exhausted, thirsty, and hungry.
Me and 4 of my other fatty friends were über excited to head to SD for the one festival that celebrates our love for all things porky. I was originally a little hesitant about buying tickets because I was concerned about long lines, etc… but on their Facebook page, they assured people that they accounted for capacity of the venue and deliberately were underselling tickets so that everyone could enjoy short lines, yadda yadda… so ok, we gave it a shot, especially after they released the list of vendors.
Baconfest was scheduled to start at 2pm for those general admission ticketholders, and we weren’t able to arrive till around 3. But hey, that still gave us two full hours to pig out, right? WRONG. Out of the 28 advertised food vendors, there were only FOUR — THAT’S RIGHT, FOUR — that had any sort of food left. So naturally, the lines for these four were absolutely ridiculous. We stood in line for pork belly corn dogs, and it took forty minutes. While these were admittedly delicious, they were small sample sizes and not worth that long of a wait. We then went to the next booth, where we were able to each get one bacon-​wrapped stuffed jalapeño. About this time, i started getting panicky that the festival was going to end soon, so a few of us split up and got into the Slaters ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ line. By this time, it was already nearly 4:30pm, and we’d barely eaten ANYTHING!
So what happens at 5pm? The festival grinds to a halt, but the Slaters booth is still going — they were trying to feed the ppl who were already waiting in this super long line. My group of five made it right to the table… excited to eat the quarter-​sized sample, and guess what? THEY RAN OUT. RIGHT WHEN THEY GOT TO US. Ugh.
Sure there was plenty of beer around, but I wanted to EAT BACON. And I didn’t want to drink on a very empty stomach. Plenty of beer is great, but in 90 degree weather, there should have been more water around. I must admit that the hot weather was not their fault, but my 1 star (still wishing I could give 0) still stands because we didn’t get to enjoy the one thing we came for, which was BACON, BACON, BACON!
Since we were so hungry still, we ended up having to go elsewhere to eat. What’s even worse? While we were waiting for our scraps of food, our one consolation was that we were doing this for the children… only to find out that something like $ 2 of each ticket is donated to charity. Out of $ 60?! What the what?!
Total rip off, 0/​10, would not bang.

The good:
–bacon
–beer
–music
The bad:
–poor management of lines
–venue
The ugly:
–vendors running out of food an hour into the general admission start time
–the title sponsor running out of bacon at the beginning of the general admission
General admission was $ 60, while the VIP was $ 100. It’s relative if $ 60 is worth the admission, but if you weigh the cons which unfortunately outweigh the pros, then you can see it’s not.
It must have really sucked for those who didn’t arrive on time. The lines were long and slow and vendors were running out of food early in the event. Unfortunately, these can be the norm at some food festivals… this being one of them. There are a lots of room for improvement, but it’s easier said than done.

I really wish negative star ratings were an option, this would most definitely receive at least a negative two stars.
I know it was their first year and putting on any type of festival is difficult, however, there are certain things I would think would be at top of the planning list; water (it’s August in San Diego), an awning, oh! and bacon. It was a bacon fest sans bacon. This was a total case of false advertising. If it had been the «Hormel Black Label sponsored beer fest,» then the lack of bacon would have been totally excusable since it was a beer fest and my great bacon expectations would have been entirely of my own creation.
Not to sound melodramatic, but I feel cheated. I paid $ 60 for a tiny bacon corn dog, a piece of bacon and some beer tasters.
Never Again!!!

So for a $ 60 ticket price, one would expect plenty of beer and bacon, right… right? WRONG.
Total RIP OFF. NEVER AGAIN!
The only positive part of this fest was hanging out with my friends. To start, the entrance lines were like herding cattle. I had a ticket and wristband that was supposed to let me into a special area in the center, but had to argue with security before things got cleared up. The selection of beer was lackluster, mostly larger corporate labels. The amount of bacon-​themed food was pathetic. It took forever to get through the lines and the samples were tiny. Barely 1.5 hours into the festival (according to when general admission was open), booths started running out of food. The event was supposed to run from 2pm to 5pm, but all the food and beer ran out before 5pm. The music sucked. It was 85 degrees out and there were barely any shade tents set up. Clearly, the event coordinators oversold the event to line their pockets. For $ 60, anyone could have eaten at a decent steakhouse, or bought about 5 gallons of beer, or about 12 pounds of bacon. The experience was disappointing overall.

Dave H.
9÷1÷2013
This event was a total rip-​off. I’m surprised no one else has pointed this out yet but this bacon fest had NO BACON! We got there 30 minutes early so we went in right at 2pm with everyone else who didn’t have VIP passes and the two tiny booths that had been giving out bacon were empty. I did see one other booth with bacon and people were waiting for 20+ minutes in the heat for ONE PIECE OF BACON. Are you kidding me? We paid $ 60 for this?
I couldn’t agree more with Dave’s posting and with all the other postings here. Now add this up money — wise. A hotel and a drive all the way from the inland empire area and think about how we felt spending that kind of money on such a misrepresented event. Barely got to eat 3 samples !, could not find any food vendors as they were not clearly marked and the it was about a 30 percent to 70 percent mismatch between food vendors and beer ! The extreme starving coupled with no water and only alcohol was a pure recipe for either passing out or a DUI due to the lack of food and water and having to drive to find any ! Two words! NEVER AGAIN ! Whoever was responsible for the profit should be ashamed for taking the public’s money that way ! No, no slack for first year !

This event was a total ripoff. I’m surprised no one else has pointed this out yet but this bacon fest had NO BACON! We got there 30 minutes early so we went in right at 2pm with everyone else who didn’t have VIP passes and the two tiny booths that had been giving out bacon were empty. I did see one other booth with bacon and people were waiting for 20+ minutes in the heat for ONE PIECE OF BACON. Are you kidding me? We paid $ 60 for this?
As others have mentioned there was also no water and the food vendors ran out of food very quickly. The only redeeming part of the experience was the beer selection was very good but even they started running out quickly. And to be honest I could have gone to any of San Diego’s nice microbrew bars and gotten a ton of beer for $ 60 along with free water, a place to sit down and air conditioning.
Shame on you bacon fest. Shame…

I’m going to give them a tiny bit of slack because it was the first year However, they better get their act together if they want anyone to come back next year.
Pros:
— we got in line for 2pm General Admission, and it moved very quickly.
— plenty of beer, lots of variety
— port-​a-​potties were clean
Cons
— NO WATER!!! Even not knowing it was going to be one of the hottest days of the summer, they should have had water. At 3pm I went looking for some, only to be told that they only water left in the whole place was only for VIP guests. Ridiculous. They should have walked to Von’s and bought water.
— People started to run out of food around 3pm. That is only 1 hour into the whole event that we paid $ 60 for. One booth said it was because some people took 2 and 3 tastes. That needs to be regulated! Or plan on making extras.
— Long lines, you waited for a while for one taste. We probably got through 3 lines before people started running out of food.
The food that we did taste was decent, but the event itself was so poorly run. No excuse for that.