Cincy Magazine's Best of the East celebration is a yearly event (held at various different…read morelocations, this year Holiday Inn Eastgate conference center) celebrating just that... the best businesses of the east! Initial voting is done ahead of time, but the final vote is up to people attending the event who receive a finalists ballot upon arrival. Many of the finalists are at the event to showcase their finest for you whether that be food, drink, landscaping, etc. Vote! General admission gets you 1 drink ticket and unlimited samples. VIP ticket includes 2 drink tickets and a swag bag. Everyone also gets a raffle ticket. I think its well worth the price of the ticket! Every single table has a coupon, freebie ie: pen etc, or food sample. There are also many contests to enter and some tables have prize wheels! I'd say at least 50 vendors including everything from: gift shops, dance or exercise studios, hvac or plumbing companies, nail or spa, doggy daycare, restaurants, bakeries, florists, jewelers, coffee shops, and oh so much more. My favorite vendor this year was Paradise Ice who was generous enough to give out full size Hawaiian ices in whatever flavor you liked including ice cream and snow cap! Theres a DJ, photo booths, and make sure to sign up for your free subscription to Cincy Magazine, the host! Need I say more? An event worth checking out each year!

This is my second year attending the Pride Parade. I marched the last two years with my work Fifth…read moreThird Bank and feel very proud to support the community and the cause. This parade is pretty huge. After the parade, I love walking around enjoying drinks, vendors and the food trucks. Plus you can score some freebies. This event is big and very busy. It's all along Sawyers Point. Everything about this event stands for to me is love and no judgement. That everyone is equal. It's always a blast and I'm going to continue to attend every year.

First year going to this pride celebration!…read more We ended up hanging out at the very end mostly because It was too hot to go closer to the front/middle. One thing of note: this parade is LONG! Too long? Maybe. It seems that because it's so long, it doesn't seem as crowded and high-spirited as other pride parades I've been to. Good to see actual organizations in the parade making systemic changes for the queer community. Tons and tons of national/corporate chains in this parade, which is a turn off for me as an advocate. Regardless, it was a great, very family friendly, display of love and acceptance.

My family & I enjoy Applefest every year in Lebanon. Not sure why they changed it from a 2 day…read moreevent to a 1 day event?! It's extremely crowded! I would give it 5 stars except that entering & exiting the parking area at the fairgrounds is not fun! All the vendor booths are great! Long lines for the food vendor booths...no surprise. All in all, a day of wonderful family fun!

Happy Cinco de Mayo! Over the weekend my family and I visited the Cincy-Cinco Latin Festival on…read moreFountain Square. The 12th annual event took place Saturday and Sunday and featured Latin music, dance, and food. While my wife and I were able to enjoy some Mexican beers and Latin styled food, our kids loved exploring all the children's activities that were available. The highlight was easily the Home Depot area where everyone was welcome to paint a flowerpot and once dry a flower was added to it, all completely free of charge. The kids area also featured a variety of games and a prize was awarded after playing them all. My four-year-old had so much fun painting the flower-pot, that we ended up going back again on Sunday so that he could paint another. And the timing couldn't have been better with mother's day just around the corner.

This was a good time. Here's what we did. We spent some time walking through the vendors which was…read moreAOK but I could have done without every other one of them asking me to give them my personal information for some contest. However, that was the only annoyance. Our main goal was food. We ate lots of food. I didn't count but would guess that there were about 15 places to grab some authentic and not so authentic food and for the most part both categories were pretty damn tasty. While we ate the main stage was a barrage of pretty good music - ranging from a nice brass band to a Cincinnati Idol competition where girls sang (better than expected) and another group that did some great traditional dancing. I'm not even sure if this next bit is a criticism or not but a little English thrown in for this Anglo would have helped me appreciate what was going on a bit more but I figured this was there party so habla Espanol, babe. Plus the Spanish seem to only add some extra spice to the food. We've been meaning to hit this festival for some time and were happy we finally did and will be back next year.

As part of my cousin's bachelor party this past Saturday we spent the better part of the afternoon…read moredown at River Downs to take in some horse racing. This was actually my first time at River Downs, though I have been to Turfway once before. There is no entry fee and there are no employees at the gates checking bags, so entry is perfectly painless. Our group arrived on a school bus, taking the long way to get there, so we missed the first race of the day. I sat out betting on the second race and eventually placed a trifecta bet on the third race after finding the ATM. I didn't win this time, and that trend continued for the fourth and fifth races too. We spent the majority of the time hanging out near the rail on the paved standing area in front of the open air grandstand. Beers were just $4.50, which is much better than most other sporting events. And since they didn't check anyone coming in, I wonder if some patrons didn't sneak in some of their own beer in the multiple coolers that I saw throughout the day. My luck changed during the sixth race of the day. After coming close to winning on one of the earlier races, and paying attention to what my program was saying versus the results of the day, I started catching on. Or at least I thought I was starting to understand it all. Most of my bets were either trifecta bets, or I would occasionally pick one horse to win, place, or show, as I did in the sixth race. In my program the #6 horse was listed as 10-1 odds to win, and a couple of minutes before post the large board in the infield displayed the odds as much higher, over 20-1. Once I saw this I ran to one of the automated machines and bought the ticket above. I thought that maybe there was something that I wasn't picking up on that lowered the odds, but I figured it was worth a few bucks to find out. As the race started horse #6 was nowhere near the front of the back. The board only updates for the first 3/4 of the race at best, so as the horses all come toward the finish line it is really hard to tell who is in the lead. As this race came to a close I watched as #6 charged up the inside rail and won the race! I had won $124.80! With just two races after that, I made a couple of bucks off the seventh race and was then put in charge of making a bet for my dad, brother, and I who pooled some money together. Again I went with the win place show bet, and nearly won again as the horse I selected finished in fourth place. Bummer. We had a great time and I look forward to going down to the track again in the future. Kim has already said that she wants to go too.

From the start knock down your expectations a few pegs and then knock them down a few more for good…read moremeasure, this isn't Keeneland, Churchill Downs or even like the race parks you've seen in movies (most recently Bounty Hunter comes to mind), this is River Downs. It is an older facility with little updating and that's what I find so charming, that it looks similar to what it did when my grandparents took us as kids (don't judge). If you've never bet on the ponies, this is a good place to start with free parking, free admission, $2 for your race book, $2 bets and the option to bring your own picnic lunch. I cannot comment on the concessions because it is there's an option to bring my own food, I'm on it (for nutritional reasons). Not a gambler? Then the people watching is sure to delight, you will see clientele you've never laid eyes on at other entertainment venues, but it takes all types to populate Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, right?! We find something for the whole family at River Downs, pony rides for kids and the ability to get down on the rail during live racing. Shade and tables for the older family members to sit and eat a picnic lunch (no alcohol or glass can be brought in) between races while studying the race book. It's an annual summer trip for us!

A nice festival put on in Cheviot. Located in one of the local area parks, they offered some live…read moreentertainment options, pretty decent cocktails, Italian sweets and food vendors. They had some carnival rids available for the kids and if you live in the area the even shares a parking lot with the community pool. Visited in the afternoon shortly after the festival started up for the day and it wasn't too busy at all. Though I was following the festivals social media post I didn't know the schedule of events. Having this information before hand would have been useful for attending around a band, demonstration or speed trivia that was scheduled. Each of the food items I sampled were good including the fried ravioli, arancini, cannoli and limoncello marscapone cake. The two bite size cannoli being a highlight. Oh, and don't worry; they fill them when orders so it's still a very crisp wafer. And for the adults? A wine garden! Bottles of wine available, but the signature cocktails is where it's at! The white summer sangria being the highlight amongst attendees in my group. $1-$2 donation suggested for entry, great cocktails and some ways to tire the kids.

This is a small town festival at its best! It is more like a mini Italian Taste of Cincy than…read moreanything else. The highlights: fried ravioli, fried oreo, the wine/sangria station, and the cookie table-they serve made to order cannoli, pizzelles, and dozens of other varieties of homemade cookies for eating right there or take away. Of special note: Stuarto's Olive Oil is an annual treat for us- we stock up on our specialty oils, balsamics, and salt mixes-and they let you sample everything! They have an outdoor stage with various acts and an indoor barn style room where food demos and art pieces are housed. There are also raffle booths and carnival rides and games for the kiddos. It is not a large festival and you can make your way through the entire are in about an hour. I would consider it a lunchtime or dinner event, but certainly not a "spend all day" here kind of festival, unless you really want to sample all the alcohol. :) A lovely little 3 day summertime magic, it is almost always the first weekend of June and worth at least a few hours of your time.

My first visit to the Lebanon Blues Festival was during the 20th annual of the event…read more When I arrived in Lebanon I was able to find easy parking in the historic downtown parking lots though they were near full and many of the streets were packed with cars as well. Given it's a Blues Fest, the first thing I saw was an antique car show and competition. This leads me to mention that this event as expanded well beyond a Blues festival. This is a city block party. Food vendors, food trucks, craft merchants, car shows and lastly the beer garden with live bands. During the 2018 event everything expanded across four streets. The area that served beer was somewhat fenced in along a grassy area with natural shade and the center stage. After entering the beer garden they planned for capacity by having separate tents to check for ID, purchase tickets for alcohol and lastly serve beer. I was able to listen to a couple bands during my visit. I really enjoyed The Sean Carney Band. The City of Lebanon and Lebanon Optimist club really did a bang up job.

Fantastic Blues festival in a very quaint town. Great music, beer gardens, good food, car show…read more Lebanon does a first rate job with all their festivals

Yes finally a haunted something that went exactly as expected. Order tickets online, paid an extra…read more$10 for express pass during a time period. It lasts approx an hour. Disclaimer lots of fog machines and strobe lights. I loved there were about 10 different "scenes" for a lack of a better term. Ea themed area actors were dressed appropriately and generally seemed to enjoy putting on a show. I won't give too much away but they definitely got me a few times. Pretty awesome. Also bonus; these are not paid actors. They are all volunteers and procedes go to youth sports.

Pretty awful. After we paid 105 for tickets they told us the wait would be two hours. Not ok but we…read morealready paid and they said absolutely no refunds so whatever. After two hours and no text, we decided to go up and ask what we going on and how much longer the wait would be. They said it would be another hour and 30 min. We would have waited for almost 4 hours and they were not even that many people there. It is sad to see a walk through so poorly run because it probably would be good but unless you are willing to wait 3-5 hours with nothing to do, I do not suggest doing it.