The Aki Matsuri Festival is a fun idea that needs better execution. There was a ridiculous amount of space that was poorly or totally not utilized. There could have been more shade, more chairs, more trash cans, more ticket vendors and more space between tables. It was literally impossible to move between two people sitting at different tables, which is just poor planning and management.
I actually had a good time, but it wasn't the festival, just the people. It was honestly kind of annoying to have some people singing terribly being blasted into my ears half the time (no offense).
It was definitely cool having a variety of ramen vendors, but in the end, all the places that are local seemed to get little to no business because of the fact that we as locals can just go there at any time. That certainly would skew even out of town visitors from going to those stations since they will have a look of being unpopular and bad.
Part of the problem was they took a festival with a lot of potential to look like it was bigger and just put everything around the perimeter, meaning that once I walk into the middle, I've seen it all. Not much amusement beyond that.
Anyways, I hope they can do better the next time. I, for one, would have liked it to be more like a contest between ramen vendors the way they hyped that up so much.