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| - After months and months of anticipation, the 1st annual Arizona Veg Food festival finally arrived.
TICKETS:
2 ticket types were available: general admission for $24, and VIP for $50. In November & December, Amazon Local offered 1/2 off of both entry options. A couple of weeks before the festival, Groupon offered 1/2 off of the general admission price. (Groupon did not offer any VIP discount options.)
VIP:
You get a goody bag, a festival tshirt, 2 raffle tickets (which you also get with regular admission), and there was supposed to be a VIP tent, but I never saw it.
(Inside the goody bag were coupons for free food and discounts off products, pins, food and vegan soap samples, and a veg*n magazine. Definitely NOT worth $50. If I can't find another discount next year, I'll downgrade to general admission.)
ENTRY:
The festival ran from 10am-6pm, rain or shine. I arrived @ 11:30am to a very long and slow moving entry line. There were no separate lines for VIP or prepaid customers (There should've been), so those of us with tickets were stuck in the same line with those who needed to purchase tickets.
After @ 1/2 hour of waiting, I was near the front and one of the workers yelled out asking if anyone had Groupon tickets. I moved towards her and she also accepted my Amazon ticket via my smartphone. But then she had to cross-reference it to a name list, and since I have a billion names (darn Latinas!) I was left waiting while they searched. At one point one of the organizers who was supposed to be helping me turned to me and was like, "May I help you?" She'd forgotten about me! Nonetheless, I was finally given my VIP wristband and guided where to go next.
Once inside, I picked up my VIP goody bag and tshirt at one table. Another table hosted the box for the raffle tickets. (Winners will be announced on their Facebook page.) From there you're free to explore at your leisure.
VENDORS:
There were a handful of non-food vendors like Farm Sanctuary, The Humane Society, a college (forgot the name), and Herbivore Clothing (whose store is located in the Portland, Oregon vegan mini-mall).
Larger companies like Earth Balance, Beanfields, and Sweet Earth Natural Foods were offering up samples and coupons for their products. Other's, like Rescue Chocolate didn't. I wanted to support their cause, but I needed to know which of their chocolate bars I'd like before shelling out $5 per bar.
b NAKED CHOCOLATES:
Long lines from opening until closing. The owner is local and she allowed sampling of only one of her many flavors. However, it was a good base sample and I was able to choose the chocolates I wanted based on that and the descriptions of other options. 8 chocolates for $12.
EAT VEGAN FOOD:
A food truck based out of Flagstaff, AZ. They offered juice and 3 food items. The only one that appealed to me was the Tempeh Salad Wrap ($5). They only charged $1 for bottled water. This was another long line. Roughly an hour wait, more for me because they tried to give me a Frito Pie. I didn't mind the wait. I did mind having wait another 1/2 hour or so before receiving my wrap. Wraps were coming out the wazoo for people who were in line after me. I brought it to Sara's (co-owner) attention. Sara, with her bubbly personality and people-person persona, was the saving grace for this one. It finally came. It was good. End of that story.
POMEGRANATE:
They were basically just offering up yummy samples when I went. I tried the Vegan Cowgirl cookies, which were delicious.
DESERT ROOTS KITCHEN:
They offered several samples of their hummus, pudding, and a couple of other things. Each item was also available for sale at this tent/booth. Very nice and friendly employees here.
LULU'S SORBETTO:
There was a nice selection of vegan fruit sorbets plus 1 non-fruit option, which was chocolate. I got the Blood Orange Creamsicle. Yummy! 1 scoop for $4, 2 scoops for $5, and 3 scoops for $7.
UDUPI:
This was THE longest line of them all. They were selling Gobi Manchurian and Dosas for only $5 each. I left and come back 2 hours later. The line had died down, but they were sold out of everything except onion and spicy chutney dosa.
MOUSTACHE PRETZELS:
Runner up in the longest line contest. But OMG, SO worth the wait. Best. Pretzels. Ever! We got Original (salted pretzel for $3) and Salted Caramel (sans nuts for me), which was $4. I can't even right now with the deliciousness involved...
Loved that the prices were not over-the-top for any of the vendors.
What I do not understand is how the 1st AZ Vegetarian Food Fest went down without some of the best vegan options in the valley, like Green New Vegetarian, Loving Hut, Bragg's, or Treehouse Bakery. I heard the hefty vendor fees were the culprit. Hopefully, next year the organization will rectify this. I'd like to see this event grow and succeed for the long haul.
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