Maryland Bacon Festival

The absolute worst most unorganized festival I have ever been to. Save your money people!

Absolutely felt as though I wasted $ 70 for a VIP ticket. The VIP ticket gives a person 10 ‘sample’ tickets to use at any vendor, 2 drink tickets, and a t-​shirt. Most of the vendors as early as an hour after the event began were out of samples. I ended up using 8 of my sample tickets at Jimmy’s Famous Seafood just so I didn’t have to face the agony of waiting 2 hours in other lines (which I did wait that long elsewhere). The Abbey Burger Bistro line was an absolute joke, and the food was undercooked, unless they were going for pork sushi.

To let the promotors off the hook with «oh, well, it was the first year of the Festival» is too kind. This was a scam. High priced tickets that basically gave you admission to the event and little more. The vendors also probably paid a pretty penny to be at this non-​event — basically a county fair with nothing to offer. Just rows of booths offering mostly non-​bacon related foods, charging what the traffic would bear, long lines and literally nothing else. Oh, yeah — a local band doing a decent job of playing covers…
We left after a couple of hours (bear in mind we had paid $ 25 a head to get in) having spent much of that time in one line for one of the few bacon related foods (a breaded Bratwurst wrapped in bacon) …if there is a Bacon Fest next year, avoid it.

I want bacon N O W.
Came here to eat bacon and 2 hours later, I’m still waiting to eat bacon. Not only are these lines ridiculous, but apparently many places don’t even have samples anymore! Expect to wait in line for at least an hour at each place… maybe even more if people have their friends cutting in line. Totally not cool. At least they had live music to help pass the time.
There’s no way I’d come back here unless they make some MAJOR changes. Forget about going VIP. It’s a joke and not even worth the $ 70. Glad I didn’t waste my money on that at least.
Buy several packs of bacon at the grocery store and have your own bacon festival people.
It’s easier to get drunk here than bacon wasted!
*****
3 hours later finally got my first taste of bacon from Banditos. They were offering a BBLT (beef bacon lettuce tomato) taco for $ 3. If you had a sample ticket, they gave you a dollar off. Wanted in line about 1.5 hours for cold tacos. Where was the bacon at?! All I tasted was the beef. So sad.
4 hours later and we have maple bacon funnel cake. The funnel cake itself was good. Crispy and not greasy. The maple bacon. Eh. I could have done without the maple syrup. The bacon was a joke as it was just sprinkled onto the funnel cake. Worth $ 8. No freaking way! Save your $ 2 and get the regular funnel cake.
4.5 hours and finally some real bacon! For 4 sample tickets we got a slab of bacon on a stick and a couple pieces of thick bacon. Yum! The bacon was cooked well and had tons of flavor. It was drizzled with maple syrup, which wasn’t overwhelming. The only thing I didn’t get was how the sample tickets worked here. A slab of bacon on a stick was 3 tickets. 1 ticket got you two thick pieces of bacon. So, shouldn’t 4 tickets get you two slabs?! Not here.
*****
By the time we left at 7pm, half the field emptied out. Also, quite a few of the food places were closed since they ran out of their offerings. This event was supposed to end at 10pm.
Yes, this was the first year of the festival. But they definitely should have planned better. After all, they knew how many people bought presale tickets! If you know places aren’t offering samples anymore, stop selling sample tickets! What was the point of paying an entrance fee and getting sample tickets only to be told that they only had full sized items available for purchase?!
The field was way too small for the amount of people there. Where were all the vendors that were listed to be there? How about those demos or children’s play area? They were all nonexistent.
Lastly, this is a bacon festival. I expect to taste bacon on each dish offered. Get creative with your dishes. Don’t just sprinkle bacon on them. I could do that at home (without the wait and excessive cost).