Sweet Tooth Festival

This is a fun event with some fun vendors. This year, they did not let anyone check in until the start time of 2p. In the beginning, it was easy to pop from table to table as you pleased but it didn’t take long for lines to form and a majority of the attendees to fall into the line way of doing things. I prefer being able to make your way to and from tables as you please to snaking around in a long line. You’re given an empty bakery box to hold all of your goodies. In some cases this works out well and in others it becomes a big pain. You’re given a slip with every vendor and volunteers punch your card to make sure you get the number of samples you paid for and that you’re not double dipping (if you stick around until vendors start to break down, you can snag some extra goodies). This is a great place to meet local businesses that you may already know or have no idea about. Vendors range from cake bakers, mousse artists, flavored cotton candy spinners, funnel cake friers, chocolatiers, and more. It’s also a great way to get to know the people behind the businesses. Fortunately, some of my favorite new places also had some really nice and fun people behind them. There were other vendors who obviously put in the minimum effort and just sat at their table with minimal interest in interacting with folks. Guess who I’ll be hiring for upcoming events — the fun folks who put in the extra effort and, therefore, had some of the best wares. The crowd was great, which is important when you’re crammed in lines holding open boxes filled with loose goodies. A volunteer even gave a young girl $ 2 so that she could roast a flavored s’more at one of the tables since it was the girl’s birthday! Everyone was happy to discuss their finds and opinions on what they had. While the $ 30 for the full experience is steep (also considering how RAIN breaks out its donations), I would definitely attend this event again. The only 2 complaints I really have are that it was too warm in the lobby and ballroom where the event took place and that I wish water stands were between the tables since everyone ended up standing in lines. I was very grateful for the few tables who had a liquid/​drink sample.

I found out about this last minute, and could not believe I was so close to missing out on this. If you’ve ever met me, you would know that I am one of the biggest sweet tooths on the planet and the concept of having a bunch of the best bakeries in town in one place for the sampling… well you might as well have let me die and go to heaven.
The price to get in is a bit steep ($ 30), but worth it for someone new in town like me so I can get to know some of my future favorites to visit. The event was well organized and though a lot of the vendors were generic with cupcakes and cookies, there were a few that stood out including the flavored ice cones and the artisan chocolates.
I would definitely go again, but next time I would smarten up and take more home rather than trying to eat all that sugar in one night!

This was a very well organized event and the addition of swag bags with a to go box to take home what you could no longer manage to eat. Sweets were great. Some better than others of course. It would have been nice to have more variety. Many of the vendors had the same flavors of cupcakes. There were a couple of twists. Like the mancake, with bacon and beer. Overall it was s successful event that just needed more variety and imagination. And of course they need more chocolate candy vendors.

Lots of chocolate, candy, ice cream and drinks equal a… sugar coma! Great event! Lots of fun and something different to do in Charlotte, especially on a cold, rainy Sunday. My husband and I had a great time tasting all of the sweets! We used our to-​go boxes to bring home some to share with grandparents and our daughter, and still have some left over! I hope that they decide to have it again because I have a long list of people that want to go with us next time.