This event was amazing! Check-in was easy breezy. There was enough room for people to set up their…read morechairs and blankets. I mean, it was the entire park. I love that they stuck to the schedule, and the meditation music they played before we released our lanterns and wishes out on the water was perfect!! The only setback was the food truck! The lines were ridiculously long. I could've brought food and come more prepared, but I was golfing across the street before the event started. Lol, there were about six food trucks out there. I don't know the logistics of it, but if they increase vendors, I think the lines would not be so bad. Overall, great fun family event. I got to share it with my best friend before moving next month. Big Mahalo to Lisa!!!!

Cool parade on Thanksgiving morning through the streets of El Paso! Even though I was a bit cold in…read morethe morning, there was a great turnout. Lots of people came out. Lots of outside vendor selling all kinds of things, foods, and refreshments. Great for families. The parade took between 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours to roll through completely. We all had a great time here. You can also just bring your own snacks. Some people were camping serving their spot since the night before (Crazy lol). It was worth the visit! Specially if you are just visiting for the holidays.

It could be so much more better. Have the bands perform. Have the dance troupes dance. Have anyone…read morewho can perform, perform. Have a little less conversation by the reporters and a little more action by the parade members. Have the military officers talk about what they do. Highlight what the military vehicles do. Talk to the veterans especially the older ones. And music would liven it up. Cut the commercials so not to pass up the parade participants. My little niece was with the LAT Dance studio and it was totally passed up. Above everything, have Bernie Olivas get off his cell phone. What is he doing, balancing his check book. Hes being so rude!!!! If he doesnt want to be there, get him off the t.v.​

Fun time. It's a great way to get outside and see downtown. Great restaurants in the area.read more

What a treat! During a recent visit to El Paso we stumbled upon El Paso Winterfest Downtown. The…read moreSan Jacinto Plaza and streets surrounding are festively decorated for the season! Everything is just so beautifully decorated! You can't help but feel like a kid again walking through the park with all the decorations and holiday displays. If we lived locally, this is definitely where we'd come every year for Christmas pics! The night we went, there was live music near the fountain in the middle of the park, ice skating, food booths and even a free pictures with Santa photo stop. So much fun! Wish more cities had community holiday festivals like this! Everything was just beautiful and everyone seemed so happy and friendly! Truly a Christmas gift! Bonus points: don't forget to get a hot chocolate and a cup of elotes- they're delicious!

NDMF is an annual festival held in the city of El Paso currently in the downtown plaza. They shut…read moredown various streets and thousands, I mean thousands, of folks attend the 2-day festival. It's an all ages event but they do focus themselves towards the 21+ crowd. I was a big fan of the VIP area where they had open bar and complimentary food. This year they featured Dos XX, Tito's, Orange Cow Burgers, and a few other options. Personally thought it was cool they had the rehydration tent with IVs and the hair/makeup touches. The teepees had a nice added touch and it was nice to layout on the grass without having to worry being congested like a herd in the general area. There were four stages were 1 was for local artists and the other three featured artists from indie/hip hob/r&b/electronic genres. Some of the featured artists were Nelly, J Balvin, Alesso, Hardwell, Ghostland Observatory, and Foster The People. Honestly being at a festival like this you're bound to get hungry so I was quite pleased to see the wide vary of food available from local spots including Crave. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and had a fun time.

Neon Desert is my favorite festival in El Paso! And yes, I'm comparing it to all the different…read moretypes of festivals we have in the area. Beyond being one of the largest (if not THEE largest), NDMF is executed pretty well and there's a range of things to do while there. I only have two gripes with the whole thing and that's the food/drinks and kids, but we'll get to that later. The lineup is usually pretty good and always has a mix of genres. The silent disco is where it's at. You throw on some head phones and you can click between two DJs. Then you dance the night away. It's actually kind of funny to see if you don't know what you're looking at since everyone is dancing and laughing, but you can't hear anything. Oh and the silent disco is usually under an open tent so you can get out of the sun for awhile without missing out on the actual festival. I wasn't able to check out each and every single vendor this past NDMF, but some of my favorites were the Henna Tattoos by Lu-E Fresh (they look good and they last a long time), the Mattress Firm tent (just lined with a ridiculous amount of mattresses that you can hang out on), the Southwest University mobile photobooth (also where you can get free paletas), the El Paso Electric Tent (charging ports galore, but you'll get out of there faster if you have your own cord), the Malibu House (drinks and flash tattoos), and the Tidal booth (where you feel like you're connected to Beyoncé). The food is where I get a little hung up. It's always overpriced, but I think that has to do with the businesses needing to recoup their cost after paying for a space at NDMF. I try to eat before I go so that way I'm only getting a couple of things here and there. I also think there could be a bigger selection of food with more vendors because they definitely have the space. If the food is overpriced, the drinks are unaffordable. My biggest recommendation is stick to the big names when it comes to drinks. There are tents that sell NDMF's drinks and can utilize any number of sponsored liquors/beer, but if those sponsors have an actual booth go to their booth instead. I bought some kind of adult lemonade from a NDMF tent and it tasted like straight lemon water... no alcohol, no sweet, just lemon water. And I even told the bartender no ice because when I found out it was over $8 for a regular cup of a mixed drink, it was a little disappointing when the cup was loaded to the brim with ice. For the same amount I spent at that tent I bought a frozen Piña Colada at the Malibu House that was not only big, but also delicious! Know where you're going to get the most bang for your buck. I just want to touch on the kiddo thing. While you are allowed to bring your kids to this festival, don't do it. It's like taking your kid to a bar... like yeah, you can do it, but the other patrons will give you that look. And actually I'll give you a list of reasons you shouldn't bring your kids: - Almost all of the crowd is 21+. - Booze, cussing, and possibly some other things that you might not want your kids around. - No kids areas... nope, you will not find a bounce house. - It's loud. - As an adult this is a wonderland so you'll probably want to walk around the whole festival, your kid will not. Just don't bring your kids. And if your kid begs you to take them because they're twelve and want to see JUST one of the performers, but they need you to take them... DON'T DO IT. They can wait until they're eighteen and they can go by themselves. This is the place to be during Memorial Day weekend if you're in EP. There's so much going on there like the skate park, live art, food, drinks, and of course music. They usually come out with the lineup a few months before the event, but you can score the best price on tickets if you buy them before then.

What a difference a year makes! The 2016 Sun City Bacon Festival really improved over 2015's, kudos…read moreto the organizers, and frankly to me, I deserve kudos for my honest and helpful review, so give me some darn kudos! (I suppose Tanya also deserves some amount of kudos, but I don't plan on sharing mine, GET YOUR OWN KUDOS!) Kudo politics aside, this year's festival just felt way better planned, there were more local restaurants participating with a plethora of creative bacony treats, and there didn't seem to be shortages like last year. The lines were way better managed, I think that using the piggybucks tokens really helped expedite transactions, plus we didn't experience the cash only nightmare of 2015. My favorites this year were the Bacon-wrapped wings from Crave, and the Maple Bacon Bread Pudding from Ode Brewery (that one was so good it actually did run out), plus Cabo Joe's 3 little piggies came back from last year, yum! Brass Monkey's bacon grilled cheese was not too shabby either. They also moved the stage which helped keep the noise from overwhelming you while you explore the festival, and they had more merch available, I even got a sweet piggy nose! I'm really glad that the festival improved, I am pro-Bacon and I'm not ashamed to admit it, but hopefully the organizers will not rest in their laurels and make it even better in 2017, and I'll be here ready to claim my rightful share of kudos.

I'm torn with this one. I LOVE seeing new (or borrowed) ideas in El Paso and Baconfest was a great…read moreone, but I HATE seeing poor, rushed execution. If this does truly become an annual event I'd love to see a whole lot more thought go into Baconfest and what it actually is. I'm glad I went because I do enjoy supporting events like this and showing that there is an interest for such an event in the area. Next year I would like to see a whole lot more. One of the biggest issues I had with this event was the vagueness. There was no website set up for Baconfest... sure they posted an article about it on the KLAQ website, but there was really no where for anyone to really find answers to some pretty important questions (i.e. What time is this event over?). They had a Facebook event page set up, but not a Facebook page and again it didn't answer any real questions people might have. The markup basically said: The event starts at 11 AM, there will be bacon, there will be a costume contest, and there will be a hog calling contest. It didn't tell you what time the event was over, if you could bring pets (it turned out you couldn't, but since that wasn't blatantly apparent I did see many dogs at the event), how do you enter the contests, what time are the contests at, who's bringing the bacon, what different variations of bacon will there be, what other vendors will be at the event, and what kind of just-for-fun things will be at this event? Finishing this review would just be easiest by answering those questions... so here goes. What time is the event over? 5 PM. There were even vendors that were asking patrons what time the event was over. Literally no one knew. Can you bring pets? They said 'no', but they didn't have anyone manning any of the access points or security for that matter so do as you please. I regret not bringing my little Charlie because she truly believes bacon is LIFE. How do you enter the contests? This still isn't incredibly clear to me, but it had to be done at the event (yup, there was no online form to sign up anywhere). I'm actually assuming it was either at the stage or at the Baconfest tent selling shirts. What time are the contests? Whenever they call them over the speakers on the stage so stay close to the stage if you're trying to enter something. The contests I saw only had about four people in them so chances of winning are high! Who's bringing the bacon? They literally never released a complete list of vendors. The only thing they listed were the restaurants that actually fell inside the bounds of the event. No duh! They had "VIP" available at The Garden that included three different bacon starters and two drinks (very vague though... what kind of bacon starters and drinks?). There were actually quite a few foodtrucks at the event like Sweet Addiction, Crave, and Sloppy Seconds that received absolutely no recognition or promotion prior to the event. What different variations of bacon will there be? Nope, they never even told you if Crave was just making regular bacon or bacon wrapped shrimp. They were making bacon wrapped shrimp (which was my favorite). There was also chocolate covered bacon (two different varieties... the price on one was a little high though), bacon sugar cookies, pork belly hush puppies, caramel bacon cashew marshmallow praline, waffle bacon, bacon pizza, bacon sushi, BLT sushi rolls, pork belly on a stick and more. What other vendors will there be? Not many unfortunately and the vendors that didn't have a bacon product didn't even do anything bacon related. Are you kidding me?! Can I get some bacon costumes or something? There was one vendor selling salsa. They were also giving samples, they could've easily served their salsa samples on top of a small slice of bacon. There was a lady selling body wraps... we're at Baconfest, we don't care about our figure right now. I think at most there was six other vendors, but they didn't even seem that involved in the event. What kind of just-for-fun things will be at the event? Other than the free photobooth, nothing. Literally, nothing. Sadly it was just a lot of shuffling from one long line to the next. I would've liked to see some game booths, a jumping balloon for kids, a bacon mascot that people would've tried to take pictures with... anything that could've broken up the lines a little bit and enticed me to stay after having my fill of bacon related products. It just felt like if you weren't eating bacon, it was time to go. Again, I'll go next year... I would just like to see more organization, not something that someone slapped together. There really is no excuse. It may have been executed in a month, but it could've been done better and honestly, the rush to do it in a month was their own... the El Paso community was not demanding this event be done NOW so the sloppiness falls on the heads of the event organizers.

After driving by the billboards for about a month, I was looking forward to checking out the El…read moreChuco Fair, but unfortunately I maybe I should have tempered my expectations. I kinda knew it would be a traveling carnival, and that's part of the appeal, they got the rides, the petting zoo, the stunt shows, the games, and, of course, the deeply fried foods, which makes for a fun evening. I just wish there were more El Chuco-ness to the fair, some El Paso flavor like local food trucks or vendors or artists. I dunno, maybe it's because it's located at the site of the old Western Playland, but it mostly made me wish I had gone to Western Playland.

If there's a major event in El Paso, you know I'll be there so even though I'm not a student (nor…read morehave I ever been) at UTEP, Minerpalooza was no exception. You know how I do! I'll admit, this year I had no real intention of going to Minerpalooza, but my friends Jelly, Jasmine, and Paul were going so I tagged along last minute for some fun and I'm super glad I did. When we arrived we somehow managed to snag some of the football jerseys the band wears and threw them on quickly since none of us were wearing anything slightly UTEP related. The J's and I walked around for a bit looking at the different booths set up. This year was the first year I've went since they've changed this pep rally to the Sun Bowl Stadium parking lot and I have to say what a huge improvement. They had a lot of companies that had more than one booth and the parking lot wasn't entirely full so I think moving forward they should definitely try to fill this so much more, like there should be a waiting list. Also more samples, the only stand giving out samples was the kettle corn that I may have taken a total of five samples from (hey, they had more than one booth). Eventually we made our way to the beginning of the "parade" to snap some shots with Paydirt Pete. Parade is in quotations because it's only Pete, the cheerleaders, baton twirlers, the band, and the flag team...and they travel about 400 yards. Maybe a real parade should be worked out. After the "parade" we watched part of the actual pep rally. They definitely need peppier people on the mics and maybe they shouldn't let the football coach speak again, he literally asked the crowd during a freaking pep rally to be "as quite as possible when we're playing offense." Like I understand the request (to an extent), but a pep rally is about being spirited, not for semi-scoldings. I was seriously impressed by the lack of spirit and monotone speakers during this pep rally, I just don't get it. Halfway through we decided to make a pitstop at the nearby Liqour Dicks for some cheap drinks and returned maybe an hour later. Luckily for us, we're friends with Paydirt Pete (one of the J's might be dating him...yes, she dates Pete, not the guy inside) and he was able to throw VIP passes our way. So we found ourself in front of Hors d'oeuvre sized dishes and of course I tried everything. The turkey with orange-cranberry gravy along with the hummus served with a tostada were my favorite and the best executed. The burger was sitting on a griddle which took the bread to the past-toast degree and made it rather dangerous to pick up. The salad was simple and made with iceberg and a vinegar based dressing which I think many found rather unappealing as I was the only one partaking. I was split on the cupcakes because the cream cheese frosting was quite good, but the cupcakes themselves were extremely dense (but moist). The bar was manned by some pretty good bartenders and I had my first Piña Colada on the rocks (nothing is served frozen at MP). We stopped to watch the fireworks and this year they definitely went all out! Even lighting up the M on the side of the mountain with multiple fireworks and some heavy duty Roman Candles. Jasmine and I made our way to the beer garden after and tried their margaritas which were very strong. The beer garden wasn't well lit like Pete's Pavilion, but we still had fun dancing since it was located pretty close to a DJ booth. After an hour or so we decided to head back to the stage and I need to mention what a huge improvement this stage was! Professional sized and equipped with serious lighting and sound. I was shocked to see The Cataracs, Cyranizzy, headlining! Say what?!? UTEP, Y U NO DO BETTER MARKETING? MP should've been jam packed! Regardless, the crowd loved him! Everyone was jumping with their hands up and dancing, definitely a very hype person to have on stage. Awesome way to end the night!

Great times me at the 2025 Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl. We were entertained by a good back and forth…read morebetween the Battle of the Devils. TheDuke Blue Devils vanquished the Sun Devils of Arizona State 42-39. We entered the stadium via the Glory Road. Despite parking being an "adventure" for us after arriving after the start of the event, we found the walk to the entrance no so crowded or too busy. Finding our section and row was easy and the steps were not to dah ring for my 70yo mom to trudge up, then down. Since a group of us got tickets for this event, we were surrounded by a group of folks from Fort Bliss. It was a place to be social and enjoy the main event, surrounded by the wonderful people of El Paso and plenty of UTEP Miners that regularly call the Sun Bowl home. There are plenty of vendors underneath the stands, but it makes navigating the pathways. The innards of the bowl are well marked, so finding your section is easy. Once you get there, the seats are unblocked and access to the stadium today was awesome. On the rare chance that it does rain in El Paso, the bowl is uncovered...so come prepared. Similarly, since it's out in the open, the true threat is the glaring sun...sun block or shade is useful, if not necessary. All in all, we had a Grrrrrr-eat time at the Sun Bowl. Congrats to the Blue Devils.

My sister, friends and I attended the Coldplay concert at UTEP Sun Bowl Stadium for the very first…read moretime ! My sister has been there before for football games , but has never gone there before for a major concert . I think if it wasn't for the scorching heat, it would have been a much more pleasant experience. Overall, though, it was hard to tell whether the city of El Paso was ready to handle the mega stardom of Coldplay, and the crazy crowds brought by Coldplay's presence in town! We attended the second concert in El Paso, which was exactly 2 weeks ago today on Sat (6/14). The lines could have been somewhat better organized because it wasn't completely clear which line was for what. Like so many others, our friend had already purchased our tickets through a legitimate and validated ticket vendor like StubHub. But even so, my sister decided to go to the very front of the many lines to inquire exactly where we were supposed to enter from. Once we found out we didn't have to stand in line for that long, we made our way to the front, got our ice cream sandwiches , refreshing cucumber drinks, and other drinks before we made our way into the stadium and to our seats. There were plenty of food and snack options. But the challenging part was getting through the throngs of crowds in the sweltering heat without fainting or passing out. We had heard that someone had fainted and passed out at the Fri (6/13) concert. So we were very careful and tried to stay as well-hydrated as we could in hopes that wouldn't happen to any of us ! The restrooms were not the greatest, but they were decent for their purpose. Once the opening acts finished, and Coldplay finally started performing, it was such an amazing spectacle at Sun Bowl Stadium :D ! The excitement of the crowd and the magic of Coldplay filled the stadium :D ! It was in every sense "A Sky Full of Stars " :) ! Unfortunately, just like any other stadium , it was a zoo to get out! And because it seemed like Old Glory Road was the main way to exit, it took us at least 2 hours just to move 6 miles! Unless UTEP Sun Bowl can improve the traffic and crowd flow in the future, I'm not sure if we would return for a concert. But despite the challenges with getting in and out of a stadium, watching Coldplay for their "Music of the Spheres" tour was absolutely mesmerizing and captivating :D ! And truly an awesome experience we will always treasure and never forget :) !