Call me biased but I have helped out/volunteered with the Redding fire festival since I was 14…read moreyears old I now help run the festival and I cannot believe how much we have grown over the years. We now do our festival at Anderson Fairgrounds. We started off in Caldwell Park that should give you an idea on how much we have grown over the years. We try to make the festival, fun and enjoyable for all ages, we offer multiple different vendors to check out durning the day. We also have multiple different fire and circus acts that we offer in the evening. A lot of which most have actually reached out to us, wanting to join our festival. We make sure to have all safety protocols for our fire dancers we have multiple volunteers for these acts with different safety measures to put out any accidents that may happen on stage. We take our performers and the public's safety very seriously especially after the Carr fire. We keep our festivals professional and fun for all ages.

Hi, this is a great professional Fire Festival. Live performers, bands, fire dancers-some…read moreperformers walked the festival interacting with everyone , others were on stage. The festival offers something for everyone between the entertainers to vendors of great foods and a wide variety of art and unique items. You should come early to stroll the festival, have some food and stay to watch the night performances of fire dancers. It's a great festival. We have sold (been an artistic vendor) for two fire festivals here and each year gets better and better. Everyone should go once to experience a great unique adventure. It's great for families and well worth spending a day having fun.

Amazing time once again this year at the annual strawberry festival. Held at west valley highschool…read morein happy valley. Tons of sweet treats including their famous shortcake which is HUGE and includes a big portion of vanilla ice cream. Lots of food vendors as well. Craft vendors, face painting, air brush tattoos and even pony rides for the kids. And don't forget about the gotta have super DELICIOUS kettle corn, made in front of you and given to you while it's still warm. Can't beat that. Live music and dancing. Fun times for all ages and a awesome experience for the entire family. A must go to for anyone that's never been. Every May is the time this event happens. We had a blast!!

Pass on the Sysco Buckets of Strawberrys over Sysco Cake and Sysco Ice Cream. What a joke. Millions…read moreof Strawberrys produced locally and not a single strawberry product to be found. Clearly a money grab and a shameful one at that. If you're going to represent a product, highlight the local farmers and businesses that revolve around it.

Paesano Days is a local three-day Italian heritage festival in Anderson River Park, held annually…read moreon the first weekend of August. The event features a Spaghetti feed and other italian food, live music, raffles, and vendors of various crafts. But the centerpiece of Paesano Days is the 32-team, 128-person, double-elimination bocce ball tournament. This was my rookie year in the event, replacing a friend who had moved to SoCal. The pressure was on, because my buddies who make up the team I was joining won the tournament two years ago and lost in the finals the year before that. After easily winning our first match on Friday night, we got crushed Saturday morning 11-0 by a group of four gals who the God of the Catholics had apparently decided were going to skunk us. It was utterly ridiculous how often we caught bad breaks in that game, which was over in about 10 minutes. That put us in the losers bracket, which is a tough route to the finals. You have to win about 5 or 6 matches in a row to reach the final, and then you have to beat the team that went through the winner's bracket twice. We made it to Sunday, which is the annual baseline goal of my team. The highlight of the tournament was beating the team of flat-bellied youngsters who take the game very seriously -- kin of the former MLB outfielder and vice-mayor of Redding, Rick Bocetti (known for his claim that he urinated in the outfields of every major league ballpark during his career). The youngsters looked like they'd just seen prophetic visions of how they were all going to die in a fire when we finished with 'em. And I rolled the winning ball. Sweet. But in our second game Sunday morning we got hammered, in large part because my teammate and I on the west end of the court got 'four-banged" by playing stupid and rolling bad. ("Four-banged" = your opponents scoring with all four of their balls in one frame.) It's hard to come back from getting four-banged when you're playing to 11. I had more than held my own throughout the tournament up to that point, but that decisive four-banger was mostly my fault. Bummer, but it was pretty cool getting schooled by an 75-year-old ringer -- the tight-roller from Siciliy who was at my end of the court. That old guy was a sweetheart, but spoke halting English in one of the most impenetrable accents I've ever heard. Old Sicilian: "Dominic.....eeesa ma sona." My partner: "Excuse me?" Old Sicilian: "Dominic......(pointing at his son and partner Dom).........eeesa ma sona." My partner: "Uh......yeah. I think it's 4-2." Whoever rolled a good shot -- us or them -- the old guy is mumbling, "Bella........bella......eeesa gooda." If you're going to get your ass handed to you, it's an honor getting it handed to you by the old pro from Palermo who might have been there when they invented the game.

NOT CLOSED. I'm a musician and I've played at the Festival for several years…read more Great shows, nice venue and close to many restaurants and bars. Tip: the orchestra rehearsed during mornings and you can just wander in and listen for free.

Huge shout out to Sparkely for the tip on this!…read more You really can just walk into the tent during rehearsals and it's exactly as described in the previous review. The next day, we brought over some food and sat outside on the picnic benches (there was a concert going on this time). We soaked in the sun, had a great view of the water and listened to the music. Both afternoons were wonderful!

We've experienced the lights festival near Palm Desert so this review is compared to that memorable…read moreexperience. These are always heart warming and a chance to either just experience the beauty of the the sky lit up with lanterns or to let go, forgive, reset, or whatever else your heart desires for internalized fulfillment. Now with that being said, in comparison to our prior experience near Palm Desert in SoCal... Traffic to get in and out is tight and through plenty of turns so have those barf bags ready if your stomach is weak. Took a very long time getting in as it's practically a 2-laner, one for in and one for out. NO CELL RECEPTION!! So either plan ahead on where and when to meet if traveling separately or be prepared not to send smoke signals to find one another. This is also a nice thing as it forces you to disconnect and be one with your gorgeous surroundings nature. It's beautiful up there - but that's about it. Food selections is narrow. And one of the poorly designed setups for the lights festival here, if more annoying than the traffic, was that the fire poles were setup too close to each other that plenty of parties outside of the arranged fires to light your lanterns had to wait or had trouble getting their lanterns lit to float with the rest. Results? A subpar continuous lift of lanterns instead of one gigantic breathless view that is marketed so heavily in social media. Mediocre execution for the actual lighting of the lanterns, no cell service, no staff walking around to help you light lanterns if you didn't have any nearby accessible tiki lamp, and limited food trucks with long waits and lines. The good? Surrounding nature and the beautiful scenery. Once you get settled, it's so serene and nice. Omit the fact that it rained and was cold - that's nature, cold was to be expected since we're way up high. Bring your tent, chairs, or whatever you have to shield from the sun and relax comfortably. Highly recommended if you've never experienced a Lights Festival. Otherwise, if you're looking for the breathtaking sights you see all over social media - this organizational team and location falls short of it. We'll try the Vegas experience next time and hope it lives up to the memorable experience near Palm Desert. Best TIP? Don't rush out after releasing your lanterns. Hang out, spend time with family, enjoy the serene nature being up high and surrounded by nature with the night skies. Relax and let the traffic die down. Leave much later so you're not annoyed by everyone trying to return home ASAP!

Organization was very poor overall. Parking was extremely chaotic, and there were no staff members…read moredirecting cars after the event. Once it ended, it took us nearly two hours just to get out of the parking area because there were no flaggers managing traffic flow. They also advertised food trucks, but there were nowhere near enough to accommodate the crowd of around 6,000 people. On top of that, many people were walking directly over picnic blankets on the grass instead of using the designated walkways, which made the experience even more frustrating.

My review is based on my ticket purchasing/customer service (or lack thereof) experience with HSMF…read moreand not about the festival experience since I never had the chance to attend. I bought tickets for my husband as a 2019 Christmas gift, for the 2020 show. Then Covid hit and they postponed the 2020 show, as did everyone else, and I completely understood. We were so excited for the rescheduled festival in 2021. Then they "postponed" that show too, even though by that point everything had re-opened and all the other festivals and shows were on. I don't know about you, but I've never heard of a 2-year "postponement" and wish we could just call it what it is. Regardless, we planned to finally attend in 2022. And then I found out my brother picked the same weekend to get married, on the east coast. He wasn't even engaged at the time the original event was scheduled to have happened, so I had no way of knowing about this conflict 2 years down the road, and of course the *very* small window to receive a refund had already passed. I am not sure how HSMF got away with offering such a narrow window for 2020 refunds, and so early on (more than a year before the rescheduled show), but they offered zero help or support when I reached out to them about this issue. They informed me I would have to join their Facebook group to sell my tickets since they wouldn't refund me themselves. I joined the group, posted the tickets, and my post was removed so it was not a feasible means of resale. Then I got an email that HSMF was soon to be selling tickets for 2022, so I once again reached out to them and asked very kindly if they could please accept a return on my tickets due to the unprecedented TWO YEAR postponement, a family wedding that I cannot miss, and the fact that they'd be selling these tickets later the same week anyway- why not sell mine too?! But nobody even had the decency to respond to me. It takes a special kind of *insert favorite word for a mean person* to take over $600 from someone during a pandemic, "postpone" the event for two YEARS, not make an exception for such extenuating circumstances, and not even have the decency to reply. Just pocketing the money of music fans without offering any type of genuine humane support or understanding. Needless to say, going forward I will not be supporting a festival that operates in such a way. We've been to music festivals all over the country and never had a negative experience, so there's plenty of good music and festivals out there where people are treated right. Buyer beware!

My friend Jim co-founded this festival many, many moons ago, when I was a youngster. I used to help…read moreout backstage, once carrying two of Steve Kimock's legendary guitars off stage after an epic performance in somewhat cold weather. I remember Steve saying, "It's like playing chickens out there." At the time that made perfect sense. If memory serves, this was the first time a lot of us tried Sierra Nevada beer (back then a sibling on the emerging craft beer scene) and the entire experience was warm and friendly. I never made it back between the early 90s until this year. I am so happy I decided to finally return. The festival has changed locations (a couple of times since) and become a lot bigger and organized. There are scores of bands, too many to see as four or five are playing at once on the different stages, but it is easy enough to walk around and catch a few songs of each. If it's hot, there is a swimming pool $8, or so. And the camping is fun. Pulling in at the beginning can be a bit stressful in sorting out your space, but once the dust settles, it's all dandy. Folks say this is a music festival for musicians, and I agree. But of course all are welcome. I hope to return again.

We always have a nice time, always tons of vendors, but not a lot to do for small children (wish…read morethere were more games, rides, etc)

Thanks for checking out my review. I hope it was helpful. Penny Candy store is a great place…read morethat's? . When being home sick starts to depress me and its gets harder to pull off a smile. We go get shave ice n all of a sudden the world is a little sweeter, n as i order my Medium shave ice w/ my favs. coconut n blue vanilla, i take slurp n Life is Good. I love you Hawaii my only home. One day. GOOOO EEEASSY! GANG-A-LANGIES

Shit show! Don't go! Huge line, nowhere to park, horrific music. Salmon is super dry!read more

Ok Ok well I don't eat salmon, but I'll still write about my experience going to the BBQ for the…read morepast few years. It's such a great event for the town, bringing in thousands of people there for the 4th of July weekend. The rotary put on this BBQ and they also serve the food. You start through a line, making you way getting fresh corn on the cobb, then Salad, then bread then what everyone is waiting for the salmon. After you finish eating get back up and get in line and get seconds of salmon. They serve beer from North Coast Brewing Company so drink a few cold ones and enjoy the music.

"Anyone can write a song. Just sit down and sing your conversations." - George Schroder (taken…read morefrom - http://katewolf.com/archive/biography/index.htm) ...and that's what inspired Kate Wolf to open up her heart and sing. I have always wanted to go to the Kate Wolf Music Festival. I remember hearing about it years ago and being impressed with the lineup. It was diverse and I knew it would be an intimate and unforgettable experience And so this year - when I saw that Smokey Robinson was playing - I committed and bought my ticket. I manifested a ride that morning from a guy who was kind enough to take the longer route to Portland and I chanced it up (danced in the car) all the way there. He wasn't able to drive all of the way in - so he dropped me off in a dry field right by the entrance. The heat was strong and as I piled all of my stuff up in an awkward heap, feeling the sweat drip into my eyes - I knew it would be an adventure. From the moment I arrived at Kate Wolf Music Festival I was greeted with nothing but kindness. Two volunteers helped recruit a festival vehicle to help transport me and my stuff into the campgrounds.The older tye-dye adorned man who drove up to help me - lapped around the area twice just so I could get a well rounded understanding of the space. Once inside I set up camp in a shady area (which unfortunately are few and far between in the campground area at Black Oak Ranch.) by a lovely welcoming group of Kate Wolf veterans. From then on - it was pure magic. Kate Wolf Music Festival has been taking place since June of 1996. The crowd skews older and it's evident by the way everyone knows each other - that the Kate Wolf Music Festival is an annual event for many. It's very family oriented and everyone looks out for each other. I have never felt safer at a festival. The music was also the most varied of any of the festivals I have attended thus far this year. With the ethereal crooning of Ma Muse, the soulful blues from Roy Roger's slide guitar, and the pure sex and unmistakable born talent that oozed from Lukas Nelson - I was smitten. I befriended some kind vendors throughout my time there and lived off of mystical Jun based Herbal Junction Elixirs . I had been gifted a ticket to see the Grateful Dead Fare Thee Well concert in Santa Clara that Sunday, and while I was definitely torn between the two - I am glad that I basked in the pure and genuine energy which moved so easily around Kate Wolf Music Festival. It was hot and it may have been one of the hardest festivals to secure a ride to - but it was so worth it. Hip rolling to Smokey Robinson in my yellow dress with my Jun elixir in hand - I felt abundantly blessed. Thank you Kate Wolf for leaving such a pure musically lined legacy. Trust.

In northern Mendocino county, every summer for the past couple of decades(almost 20 years now). A…read morededicated group of musicians, music lovers, happy volunteers and all things northern California cool gather just north of the tiny rural town of Laytonville right on the 101. The Kate Wolf festival is one of those rare events that everyone should attend at least once in their lives. Excellent music, decent food options, kids programs and entertainment throughout the days events(if you have children), camping on the site of the festival, most everyone you encounter is glad to be there, friendly and kind. All of the volunteer staff are good, decent folks that are glad you are there, and it is all held in an awesome setting - under big shade trees and on a grassy meadow. It can get a little crowded, it can be a little hot and some times there is a line at the porta-pots(which by the way are some of the cleanest you will ever encounter at an outdoor three day music festival) but hey that's part of what makes outdoor festivals fun and interesting - Kate Wolf Festival in a class all by itself and its all about the love and the music. You will be glad you went, and most who do attend come back. Well worth the effort, and another great event that makes living behind the Redwood Curtain - such the cool and awesome place that it is. a Solid 5 star event and festival. 00240

California WorldFest was held at the Nevada county fairgrounds. It was a Mecca of music from all…read moreover the world and very unique foods. If you are gluten free, vegan or vegetarian this is a great festival for you! We tried Chinese food, gluten free pizza and Revive kombucha. The lime flavored was amazing!