Snohomish Cider Festival

We went to this event tonight and were pretty disappointed by the experience. Space was far too small for how many attendees there were, cider selection was just okay, but the line for the food was insane. Felt bad for our DD who ended up leaving without even getting any food because the line was so long. Seems like a waste of $ 25 each for our group frown emoticon and a real waste of time and money for our DD. I don’t think I’ll be attending next years Snohomish Cider Festival… Might as well hold out for the big Beer Festival which is was executed in a better fashion.

The only reason I give 2 stars instead of 1 is the cider selection. Even though I am an amateur cider connoisseur and fairly familiar with the local cider options, I found 3 companies I had not even heard of, and ended up sampling 10 ciders I had never had before. As far as tasting many ciders, for the price, it was a good deal. Everything else was not enjoyable though. It was $ 25 for entry, cider glass, 5 tickets, and $ 5 towards food, but only $ 5 additional for 3 more tastes (and they were pouring generously). $ 10/​ticket for designated drivers, including $ 5 for food. I understand they need to know how many people are there (ie. no entry without a ticket), but I think they should reward not penalize DDs (ie. make entry $ 5 or even free, not be out $ 5 just to do the safe thing).
I understand this is a fundraising event so it was all volunteers who likely had not done anything like this before, but it was completely unorganized; they could have at least trained them more, had more volunteers, and had signage. And apparently this isn’t even the first year they have done this. They also knew ahead of time how many people were expected (even the Facebook pace showed 400+ people as attending, and it appeared like most people bought tickets online in advance, so they would know that). I imagine we were in fire code violation because you literally couldn’t move without shoving people. If the building was larger people could have moved away from the tables where they were pouring. Another disappointment with the crowd size is that you don’t get a chance to even talk to the folks from the cideries about their product. I imagine this is a big negative for both parties involved.
For the venue size, without expanding outside or into any other buildings (if available) or splitting it into two time slots or something, it was very oversold. Besides the crowds and unorganization, the food was the biggest issue. You had to stand in the food line to even get a bottle of water (unless you wanted to pour water meant to wash out the glass into your cider tasting glass; no disposable cups provided). We were lucky and got in the food line early so it was «only» a 30 minute wait for the disappointing selection. No vegetarian option. Also no clear gluten free option (a significant number of cider drinkers do so because they avoid gluten).
When I had bought the tickets they had advertised having «several food trucks», so I assumed it would be like similar Snohomish tasting events (at Snohomosh on the Rocks this year which I would guess had a similar size crowd for each session they had 4). A couple days before it was changed to «BBQ plate», saying it would be pulled pork, coleslaw, and beans. It ended up being a very small serving of pulled pork sliders and cole slaw, unless you paid more. There were a few comments on their Facebook page about what happened to the food options, no vegetarian option, no gluten free option, one vendor for so many people, etc. Thankfully I saw that message and knew to not expect any food I’m able to eat, so I ate in advance. I’m surprised the BBQ caterer didn’t run out of food earlier (goes to show the organizer knew how many people were coming and was able to tell them).
I think if there were other buildings to use or most everything could be moved outside (maybe do it a Saturday afternoon in the warmer summer months), this venue could still work, as it was quite nice. I very much liked the idea of this event, and enjoyed tasting the ciders (and even buying a couple to take home), but that was all there was to this event. It was otherwise very disappointing, and without changes I’ll be hesitant to return.