Walnut Creek Art & Wine Festival

Nice suburban outing experience. Lots of people, but not so many it seemed excessively crowed, and lots of families, and pretty tame all told, and some great weather came out in Walnut Creek.
Not really my thing in the end; at least not without a group of friends, and sitting in the sun. The wines on offered didn’t look that appealing, and we opted instead for the beer, which was $ 25 for 1 glass and 3 fills. Not real cheap, but I guess they can charge what they want.
Likewise, the vegan options were a bit slim, but we got a $ 12(!) container of fig leaf wraps, tomatoes and hummus. Something I can get for $ 4 at the salad bar, and not terribly filling.
Took us a long time to find the parking location, which wasn’t terribly well market, but at least the shuttle busses were nippy (could have paid $ 8 for close parking, but that too, was not well marked).
All in all, was OK, but maybe the Lafayette wine festival later in the year is more my scene. We had almost gone instead to the Mill Valley festival the same day, but at $ 50 each for entry, had decided to skip.

What waste of time! The staff were disorganized and unknowledgeable! And where’s the «art»? It’s just basically several vendors selling nick-​nacks like in a state fair, except they’re suppose to have «wine tasting»…I saw maybe 5 wine booths with people not knowing what they were serving. Good-​Night! And, Let’s not forget a bunch of drunken adults roaming around because there’s a mini beer garden. The food was awful! They were serving flavorless crap for the price of $ 8-​$ 12. Every time we purchased food from a vendor, it ended up in the garbage after 2 bites. So we tried the gyro, chicken teriyaki, chicken kabob, pork kabob, & Hawaiian sausage. The wines were okay, thank goodness. You have to buy alcohol tickets from a booth that no wine/​beer server know where it’s located… also, there’s no good seating area to eat.

This had the potential to be so much better. First time coming to the festival. It is poorly laid out with no organization. It’s like everyone showed up in the morning and they said just pick a spot.
Employees/​volunteers were completely uniformed. Four separate people told me directly there was no beer or wine garden. Quite confusing as we only saw about 5 beer or wine vendors. Imagine my surprise when I saw an entire dedicated beer garden as we left.
So if you plan on selling $ 10, 10 ounce beers again. Maybe you should get your act together. But until then count me out

Ummm, where’s the art? Not here, that’s for sure. It’s like the Walnut Festival without the rides and hoochie teens and stoopid jocks running around, but with a bunch more cheesy booths and buzzed grown-​ups acting like hoochie teens and stoopid jocks.
Fun!!!
If you want art, go to the downtown art strolls, which happen a couple times each year.

Nice day out. There are more vendors than other festival and the stuffs are more interesting. People there are really nice and friendly.
Make sure you have sunscreen on because it’s superrrrrrr hot. I wish they could provide more shade for eating area.
Food price are okay. I got pad thai and short ribs for $ 10. Hubby got polish hot dog for $ 7.50 and $ 4 for non-​fat yogurt in a cone! Unfortunately we didn’t have any beer or wine.
You can park at a designated area for free and take a shuttle bus or pay $ 8 to park in the Heather Farm Park.
Get there early so you don’t have to worry about parking spot.
Forgot to mention… it’s pet friendly…

Gayle and I returned yesterday for 33^rd Annual Walnut Creek Art & Wine Festival. We drank a few adult beverages, enjoyed 2 bands which sounded like Santana and Journey cover ensembles, relaxed at the shady beer garden, and chatted with several of Gayle’s friends. The layout was a bit different than I remembered, some of it partially due to the construction associated with the upcoming All Abilities Playground. Even so, there’s was plenty of room and fun for all.

It’s fun to go walk around. I have a friend who works a booth and gives me free drink tickets so that rocks. I still have to buy a glass due to the drink Nazi’s. Every year the glasses get smaller and smaller and the price for the glass goes up, Weird… I think the beer mug is like 8oz now, down from about 14 just 3 years ago.

I look forward to the outdoor concerts and festivals come this time of year. Some times I have enjoyed going more so some years then others. I don’t usually go for the music, I go to walk around. Some times I’ll talk to the artists, I’m a photographer. Most of the art work for sale is rather pricey. It’s fun to people watch at this event. Try free samples of food, it’s very rare that I buy anything at this festival, at least it looks like a good band will be here this year, The Sun Kings, I’ve heard them before, they are a really good band.

Love the art & wine festival! Such a great place for local artist to display there work. It is hard to find so many local artists in one place. I do however like when this even is held in downtown walnut creek.

I’ve only gone to this event 2 out of the 5 years I’ve lived in Walnut Creek. It’s good for some jewelry shopping and people watching, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to get here. Parking seems like a nightmare and honestly the only reason I’ve gone, is because I can walk here and it’s convenient.
There are some nice vendors who I’ve seen at other Art & Wine events and it’s always good to connect with them and see what they’ve got that’s new.
The venue itself is nice-​I am huge fan of Heather Farms. However, because this is my usual go-​to spot for long walks and bird watching, it’s kind of sad to see all the cheesy white tents lining my normally peaceful spot. That and all the bro-​dudes stumbling around getting their Sunday wine buzz on, makes the whole thing just seem tacky.
I don’t know-​not a huge fan, but like I said, good for people watching and a few interesting artists. Three stars though because I love my town and support any events that the Chamber can put on that will draw people here to support the local economy.

This was the worst festival ever Walnut Creek has presented. Now they are charging $ 5 to get in. It has always been free in the past. No artists to be found. Just commercial venders: PG&E, solar, a bank, and the like. Nothing of any real interest.
Things were so slow due to few people attending, venders kept approaching us to try to sell the wares. It was like being on a car lot with hungry sales people.
We were in & out of there in 20 minutes. Nothing here to make us want to return next year. Total bust, waste of time & money.
Take my advise, avoid this event next year.
Have to over-​rate this at 1 star.

Great Festival this year. Lots of fun happy people, great music good food, and the Zumba at Forma gym Booth was rockin!!!

I was looking forward to this event since I really enjoyed it last year in 2009. This year, there were definitely a lot less tents serving either wine or beer, which didn’t make sense since the festival is called Art & Wine. Plus, since there weren’t as many tents, there was definitely a back up at the tents that did serve. My other complaint was regarding the glasses. I know that the City makes money off of the glasses, but they really make money off of the tickets, which are $ 5 per pour. I could understand the city being upset with me using a different glass if it was a different size, thus it could cause confusion for the vendors… but the glass from last year was the same size as this year… so the city should really promote recycling and allow you to reuse your glass, b/​c the event is pricey enough especially during this economy.

Meh… Wasn’t impressed at all this year. The glass Nazi’s were in full effect. Who cares if i use my old glass. Customer service was lacking exept for the 20 year old pimp chiropractor working all the ladies. There was hardly any choices of beer. My Terriyaki Chicken bowl was kind of wack. The music was terrible. Something was missing this year. Last year i would have given it 4.5 stars.
Lafayette wine festival is better.

The three stars are strictly for this year’s (2010) festival. I love the Art&Wine festival because it’s walking distance from my house and it’s always a chance to meet up with good friends and listen to some music — and check out the booths even though we never buy much other than the alcohol.
My biggest complaint this year is that my friends and I went on Saturday right when they opened and some of us had glasses from last year while the rest of us were going to buy new glasses. We figured we were recycling (good for the environment!) and obviously we will be buying drink tickets anyway so we are going to spend money. The lady who helped us told us that we would not be able to get served at the booths with the old glasses. A couple of us bought into that and got the new glass only to find out the rest of the group was able to use the old glasses at some booths (some people were sticklers)
Well here’s the real catcher!!! I returned on Sunday with some other people and one of my friends bought the package which included the glass and they had RAN OUT and were giving people glasses from 2007 and 2005.
We went to a booth to get beer and the guy almost didn’t serve my friend until I pointed out that EVERYONE had old glasses. It was just a very unpleasant customer service experience. Bad on you City of Walnut Creek. You should want people to recycle the glasses. Perhaps that’s your only revenue but it’s not like everyone is going to use an old glass and it was a horrible experience and we were treated very poorly and all for what — you guys to be giving out old glasses the very next day! It was a stupid rule and I don’t suggest you continue it.
Also, there seemed to be less wine and beer booths this year. Where was Pyramid brewery?
However, it was still good to have a couple beers and spend some time with friends. I really believe it’s the people who make this event and the people working there should treat us better and be gracious that we are going to spend money and less greedy about the glass.

I have always had a great time at WC AWF!
Good wine, good food, friendly vendors and I have actually found (and purchased) a couple pieces of artwork in the years I’ve gone :) I say GO!

FT’s review brings up a very good point: if you’re coming to the Walnut Creek Art & Wine festival for the art, you’ll be very sorely disappointed. In fact, I’ve come to the festival for 4 of the last 5 years and I honestly think that the artists that exhibit here have gotten weaker every year.
That said, if you come here and focus more on the nice weather, food, and the ability to drink wine and beer in the open while strolling along perusing what the various exhibitors have to sell (not much, I’ll give you that!) then you’ll have a wonderful time. Make sure to try CJ’s BBQ and Fish for some awesome catfish nuggets. Those things are so juicy and tender they just plain totally rock! The beer selection is also quite decent… This year they were serving Skinny Dip beer so I made sure to drink several of those! Thankfully my wife is pregnant so I had myself a designated driver! ;)

I can only give it 4 stars since I was only here for about an hour. I came here with my cousin late Sunday after my cousin’s baby shower. By 4:30 PM people were pretty drunk and faded. This was by far the largest art and wine festival that I’ve seen compared to the past ones at Heather Farms. Since my cousin’s friends are the local cops we get to hear some funny stories as well as see some drunk guy almost get knocked out by one of the vendors since he is causing so much trouble. He even ran up on a person in drag and start thrusting next to them. When he went over to the fitness stand, they warned him before and were ready to knock him out. That would have been entertaining. There was so much good food, wine and items for sale.
There was also this super jumper. It has a rock wall and all these other areas. By far the largest jumper I’ve seen ever. And only $ 1 to play inside. Too bad I’m not a little kid. That would be weird for a group of adults to be in a jumper at an art and wine festival. They probably think I was drunk. haha

Boooorrrring! A very boring event! I was hoping to see real art from real artists, not mass production products that sell in the store, not clothes, not hats, not insurance company, not home improvement store booth! So we don’t have any artists in the tri-​valley area? Do they all live in the city?
It was a disappointment and I was only there for less than half an hour. If you were there just for food and wine, then it’s better… The 2 stars are for the free shuttle!

this is by far the east bay’s best festival every year and my all time favorite as well. there are more than 200 artists, 2 stages of continuous music, an expanded children’s area with petting zoo and so much more. they have so many great food booths as well. i’m not talking about crappy fair food but the best food from local restaurants. my problem is it’s so very easy to eat all day long which is ok because they have alot of beer and wine. all of my favorite micro brews and wineries are here so i’m here all day long both days and try to pace myself carefully.
the parking is usually pretty difficult but i always seem to tend to luck out. if your not so lucky they have many shuffles that will take you to and from.
saturday 11:00 — 7:00pm and sunday 11:00 — 6:00pm