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| - I really disliked the use of Shaker Square for this event. First, the square is separated by RTA Rapid tracks. That means you have to exit the event, cross the tracks, and then enter the event again on the other side. It's not safe. Nor is it safe to force all these people to walk around the square's street when traffic is a complete cluster of people trying to get through what is essentially a major intersection. Shaker needs to find a better location to hold this event that makes sense and might not come with the danger of getting hit by a car.
Second, I don't think it can be the Cleveland Garlic Festival if it's a Shaker event. I'm being nit picky here because I don't even know why the garlic harvest is so important to Cleveland or Shaker. I love garlic and I'm cool with the premise of eating a lot of garlic foods, but I just don't get the purpose of this event. Maybe Shaker just needed an excuse to have a party?
Even if I ignore the above, I can't really recommend this to anyone for future years. This past weekend was my first and probably last garlic festival experience. It's $7 to attend a festival with very few attractions. Apparently the proceeds went to support the Shaker Square Farmers' Market. I'm all for supporting things like farmers' markers, but I want to get some value for my money and this event just didn't bring any value.
I enjoyed Mitchell's black pepper and roasted garlic ice cream, and I really liked the black garlic sausage I got from Pura Vida, but that's not enough to justify a $7 entrance fee. I think I saw five food vendors, a bunch of people selling fresh garlic, lasik vision peddlers, and some people selling salas and olive oils. I can go to the grocery store and see most of the prepared vendor food styles for free. A lot of the food stands just took their usual menu items and added garlic. Really? I paid $7 to get access to whole food's garlic hummus and a burger with garlic cheese added? Wow, impressive. Even the kids entertainment looked cheap. The hay maze that stood one bail high and was about the length of two cars just looked sad, and it sat right in the middle of the foot traffic area, making it an awkward mess for visitors. The event did have live bands, but the music seemed to compete across two stages and the bands weren't playing anything festive during my visit. I think most communities would offer entrance for free, which ultimately helps increase attendance and the amount people can spend at stands. But in this case, there wasn't even that many stands. I wasn't drinking, so I couldn't even blow money on beer and drink until the event seemed fun and worthwhile.
If I'm going to come back to future festivals, I'm going to have to hear about how they really stepped things up or got rid of the entrance fee. Otherwise, there's not much reason to attend this thing at all.
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