I went to the 2019 Dish It Out on High Street in Phoenix. This festival benefits boys and girls…read moreclubs of Phoenix. General admission tickets ran around $70.00 and VIP admission ran around $200.00. They had 29 general admission restaurants, 22 beer vendors and 24 general admission wine and spirit stops. and 7 VIP restaurants and 10 VIP wine and spirit stops. They also had a live band performing. I've experienced several problems with this festival. The biggest problem was that after an hour the place was so packed with people you couldn't breath. The lines disappeared and it was just a packed crowd. You were trapped and at that point it became hazardous. Also many people just started dropping plates of food and drinks and the ground became hazardous and slippery. That pizza that hit my husbands leg became like a banana peel on the ground. I tried to hit the food spots as quick as possible and then try some wine. I could only get two glasses of wine. I was planning on spending most of my wine at one certain spot but within an hour they ran out of red wine (BAH!) It was just too crazy to fight the crowd to try to get another glass somewhere so we just left. The other thing I really hated was that on the dish it out website they listed participating vendors without separating them into general admission and VIP. It wasn't until around the day of the event that you actually knew the separation. Some of the food really was very good but I didn't feel like I got my money's worth. It was too uncomfortable and hazardous walking around. I will not attend Dish It Out at this location again.

2017. Wow. Classy event with every course covered! Flemings, Tea2Go, The Vig, Chino Bandido, Red…read moreBull, Wine, Beer, The Halal Guys, Kona Grill, Venezias. The lines were long and there were areas where you couldn't move, but that's part of the excitement of a good festival. Making friends and enjoying the libations. Cool ambience with VIP lounges and good signage. Well organized and laid out. So much to choose from that I didn't sample all the restaurants!

A fun, affordable event with a bounty of local AZ beer tasting. As a first timer to this annual…read moreevent, I expected more food truck vendors and beer tents to be present. None-the-less plenty of tasting tickets were provided (many more than we could use - NO complaints there). We enjoyed ourselves.

The Scottsdale Family ArtsFest is a free festival that runs for two days in the Scottsdale Civic…read moreCenter. It features performing arts by K-12 so it's actually more catered to kids. There's performances and various booths. What I found very lacking was their food choices. The theater's first floor features a variety of art done by kids which I thought was neat. Otherwise, this isn't all that special unless you're a kid.

Not as big as I expected from the advertising. Needed more shade spots and more fun booths.read more

Attended this annual event on Saturday. It was fairly big, taking up a good half chunk of the park…read more I only saw a few homeless folks loitering. They must have been hiding until the festival ended. The dollar food sampling tickets were a nice touch, but I only found about six booths out of 150 offering those dollar samples. I tried the $1 tamales and small egg burritos, both were good. Over a dozen food trucks, a huge beer garden and a bunch of local stuff for sale. It was a nice event for downtown Phoenix and finally one where no admission is charged, like the good ole days.

The SW Veg Fest was a FREE and Non-Profit Festival at Steele Indian School Park in 2017. The focus…read morewas FOOD (it might have been ALL VEGAN), Retail, entertainment and education. They also offered discussion panels with Vegans. Some of the topics of discussion were Veganisim in politics, How to transfer to a Vegan lifestyle, There was a Vegans of Color group and Raising Vegans in a non-Vegan World. Not all but some of the food Vendors were giving out food samples. There might have been about 30 venders. It was extremely crowded EARLY for a first time event. Parking was somewhat difficult. They didn't post any signs anywhere for the event. I arrived around starting time and got the very last parking space available. If you go next year you need to arrive extra early before the event to get a spot if this festival is in the same location. They also provided free water but you needed to bring your own sipping container. The event was also dog friendly.

On my birthday weekend, I went to the 2024 Arizona Strong Beer Festival on 2/17/24 with my parents…read moreand my boyfriend, who also had a birthday a few days ago. Though there were about 175 different vendors at the festival, there was no way that we were going to end up trying all of them. The festival took place at Salt River Fields at Talking Stick in Scottsdale. Because we had a wristband that we picked up at the college baseball game that took place the night before, we entered the festival at approximately 11:30, which was an hour and 30 minutes before the general admission entrance time. At the entrance, we were given 24 booth tickets and a complimentary 3 oz sample glass to use at all the booths. We later realized that some of the booths didn't ask for our tickets, so we believed that only the VIPs got unlimited samples. We had access to their VIP lounge, which was located under a giant tent in the middle of the field. Because we didn't want to lose our table at the lounge, we agreed that one person stay at the table while the rest of us went to the brewery tents. It was really nice having a table at the VIP lounge, though while the shade did help sometimes, it did get a little hot as the festival went on. Some of my favorite samples that I tried here were the brand new Monster hard tea (yes, Monster now makes alcoholic drinks), OHSO's hard seltzer, and Pedal Haus' day drinker lager. Free water was also available with lots of ice provided. We agreed to stop for water after every two beer samples. Also making an appearance at the festival were a lot of food trucks. We ended up getting a lemonade at The Funky Pita food truck and pizza muffins from Floridino's food truck. The pizza muffins were so awesome and I feel that I should find them again so I can have them again. The lemonade was also refreshing on an unusually warm day in February. Other food trucks that were at the festival were Leo's Ice Cream, Sally's BBQ, and The Corn Dog Company. Though we couldn't make it to the end of the festival because of the unusual heat, we still had fun trying out new beers and talking to new people. Looking forward to next year, if applicable!

So this is pretty much THE beer festival for AZ. All the state's breweries are there along with…read moresome from the neighboring states. You get 40 sample tickets (2 oz. per ticket) which is plenty, trust me. The beers come strong as the name implies, so pace yourself, stay hydrated, and don't show up on an empty stomach. The only real gripe I have on the festival is the organization at the point of entry. I showed up a good 5 min late and had to wait in line 20 min to get in. This should not happen when an even larger beer festival in a Denver (GABF) can get you in pretty much instantly when you show up like 15 min early. Someone needs to contact those guys and figure out how they do it and replicate it for sure. Anyways, have fun!

I went with family on the first night it opened last week and we had a pretty fun experience. The…read moreparking lot is big and they had parking attendants showing you where to park. The person who scanned our tickets was friendly and she greeted us as we walked in. Once inside, we explored it all. It was a pretty busy night but we were able to see it all. The train ride was the highlight of the night and they did a great job on each theme. The ligth show was also pretty cool and unique. The snow show was a fail at 7:30pm but when we went back to a later time, it finally worked. The miniature houses were super cute and we were able to take pics with Mrs. Claus. We bought three hot chocolates and they were good. The parade was small but cute!

I made an error when purchasing tickets and reached out through their "contact us" email... and…read morereceived zero response. No customer service whatsoever. We bought VIP tickets at $80 each, and honestly, it felt like a holiday heist. Several areas were closed off with "private event" signs, including the cookie-decorating section we were looking forward to. The so-called VIP lounge is an absolute joke -- they should be embarrassed to label it as a perk. The only alcoholic option was a bizarre mix of rum, margarita mix, grenadine, and Sprite. It tasted awful, and I watched multiple people toss theirs in the trash. The only other "specialty" drink was hot chocolate spiked with peppermint schnapps. Everything else was basic and absolutely not worth the price. I've been to plenty of holiday light events for a fraction of the cost that blew this one out of the water. The only highlight of the entire experience was the Cowboy Christmas show -- a short 15-minute performance with genuinely talented, improvisational actors. Overall, I do not recommend this event. It felt like a mediocre money grab. The Pratt Brothers really lived up to their name.

Todd was the DJ for my April 2017, destination wedding in Puerto Penasco (Rocky Point), Mexico…read more From the initial contact through the wedding, Todd was very responsive and helpful. We met twice in person prior to the wedding to discuss equipment, song choices and timelines/general flow of the night. On the day of the wedding, Todd arrived early to set up and really took the lead ensuring that our officiant and caterer stuck to the timeline of the evening. As the bride who planned a destination wedding in a foreign country with a language barrier and did not hire a wedding planner, his direction for the evening was priceless! My husband is a self-proclaimed "bass head", Todd kept the dance party alive and the bass pumping! A few guest came up to us after the wedding and said that it was one of the funniest weddings they had been to. Another guest commented that they loved how engaged Todd kept everyone without being pushy. We would highly recommend Todd! He made our night and the night for our guest even more unforgettable!!