Jubilee

A friend of mine hooked me up with tickets so I decided to come and experience LA’s miniature music festival. Since I don’t live around the area, it was really fun seeing a whole different kind of crowd-​a mix of artsy and punk rock. There was plenty of good chowing down to do with all the different food trucks, coolhaus and hungry nomad were my favorites. The music during the afternoon was a little bit too amateur for my tastes, but it got a lot better by the end of the day. I discovered quite a few local bands that I really want get to know better. Honestly, I think it would be a lot better if it was bigger, but maybe it’s a logistical thing (it is LA, after all).
I don’t know if I’ll come back next year, but I“m glad to have experienced it.

Jubilee was not what I expected. Was looking for something fun to do for memorial day weekend and came upon this Jubilee event somewhere online, perhaps fb. Anyway, I was originally going to pay the $ 20 to see the bands playing but decided not to. I did see, however, that there was a free block party. Ok cool, I like anything thats free.
It was my fault that I didn’t look at the exact location of the free block party. I just assumed all entrances would be the same. And it also didn’t help that I wasn’t familiar with the area alone. We got to one of the main entrances near Sanborn St. I asked where the free block party was because we noticed we needed tickets to enter through this entrance, which we didn’t have. The two teenagers they put in charge in the front in one of the tables told us we’d have to go around the block. All they said was go down Commonwealth St and it’s right there. Ok, seems simple enough. We did exactly that but there was no entrance to be seen! I can see the food trucks and booths but everything was fenced off. We ran into other people who were also confused with the entrances. We flagged down one of those guys wearing yellow shirts and asked where the entrance to the block party was and he was also confused because he was getting conflicting stories, but he told us to go back around to where we originally were. I told him we wanted to get to the free block party. He said there’s another entrance off Sunset and something else. He didn’t give us directions, he didn’t really guide us. Luckily we ran into a guy who was working as a vendor at the event and gave us more thorough and descriptive directions. We followed it, and after about 35 mins we finally got to our destination.
As soon as we got there it was theeee smallest block party ever! All the food trucks we saw from the fenced off portion was for the paid part of Jubilee. This block party only had one small food truck and just a bunch of booths that seemed lonely. It literally took us 5 mins to walk around the whole entire thing. There was a stage where performances were done but when we were there no one was playing, it must’ve been intermission.
We immediately left. I’m sure if I paid $ 20 to get in, perhaps I would’ve have enjoyed just a little bit more. Free block party was not fun. I was better off going to a farmers market which is also free but somehow a lot more fun than this.
In my opinion, I was expecting more out of the free block party. It was disorganized. And if you’re going to put people in the front to work the entrances, you gotta train them to give better directions.

3^rd Annual Jubilee Street Fair — 2012
I got a Gold Star discounted pass for ½ off making it $ 10 (normally $ 20). We took the redline metro and exited Santa Monica/​Vermont station. From there it was about a 7 minute walk. The street fair runs on Santa Monica Blvd between Commonwealth and Sunset. It was a small, quaint street fair. Paying $ 20 would be a bit too much but for $ 10 it is worth checking out. I think parking would be tough, I noticed the meters surrounding the fair were only for 1 hr, the website said that the surrounding neighborhoods required permits but they do offer free parking down the way at the old circuit city parking lot off sunset with shuttle service provided.
When you order through Gold Star, they don’t give you the option to print passes for this particular event so you have to stop by Will Call which took about 15 minutes. Once we got in (off Santa Monica/​Commonwealth entrance) there were a few vendors selling art work, t-​shirts, spices and some other handcrafted good by local artists. The next area was the lineup of food trucks, it seems like everywhere I go it’s all about the food trucks these days. There were about 15 trucks ranging from kabobs to indian curry and for dessert crepes to gelato. They had a booth that sold the dole whip pineapple ice cream which I saw when it was too late (the same one you can get in Hawaii — I’ve never seen it out here!). The range of food options were pretty good for the size of the fair.
The highlight of the street fair were the 2 concert stages. The bands were great and perfect for the Silver Lake crowd. There were 2 bars both next to each of the stages. The cocktails were $ 9 or $ 13 for a double. I guess you can call it the typical prices for this type of event.
I think the fair could be bigger. I could get from one side to the other in less than 10 minutes (strolling). I was expecting something like the Orange Street Fair but it was much, much smaller. I enjoyed myself the whole 45 minutes I was there but I’ve been to better music festivals. Since this is the 3^rd annual Jubilee fair, l expect they will make improvements for the future fairs.

(Attended 5÷26÷12 SA @ 6am — 5÷27÷12 SU Midnight): How a good deed turned into a parking ticket… so is life!
A chance to give back to a community I love and get complimentary access to all-​day music, food, drinks, and an opportunity to meet new people — then this year’s Jubilee in Silver Lake is the perfect thing for me this Memorial holiday weekend!
It all started with a 6am-9:30am volunteer shift set-​up through
(and a separate afternoon shift the following Sunday), that got me up bright and early. To help bring to life this wonderful local community event which I’ve attended in the past was a no-​brainer! I ended-​up working until noon (heck, where or what was I going to do until then, anyway!?), but once the event opened up, I was like Fred Flintstone in the opening of the 60’s cartoon — I punched out, took my volunteer t-​shirt off, and I was ready to enjoy what I helped bring to life in some small way.
The price of general admission tickets was $ 20.00 per day or $ 35.00 for a weekend pass… both bargains, in my opinion. But thanks to volunteering, I received this for free! My first dive into the food and drinks realm was a free Pepsi that was handed out by a Pepsi street-​teamer; they also had a cool little interactive stage set-​up. Next, I surveyed all the various food trucks carefully before I decided on one. To my surprise, a handful of the food trucks were extremely kind to give me free samples of their tasty offerings! I’d barely helped a couple of them, but maybe they recognized me as one of the volunteers. Those of note were Pig Out!, India Jones Chow Truck, Chinese & Korean BBQ. Many thanks to these kind people! Needless to say, I didn’t capture the price for their food nor any pictures (I was still in shock, rather tired, and starving by then so it slipped my mind), but in a word… delectable!
There was also a beer garden with Heineken as the major sponsor, and Dos Equis and Newcastle also being served. Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum and Milagro Tequila were also prevalent for your drinking pleasure.
As for the music, as of this writing, I’ve listened to a couple local high school bands play on the Hoover Stage. Sorry, none of the band’s names come to mind now, but they all kind of sounded alike — think current bands such as AWOLNation, Grouplove, and the like. It was like a pre-​KROQ status event. The same can be said about what I listened to on the Sunset Main Stage. I hope to have an update later today of other bands (especially Kinky tonight, and Aloe Blacc on Sunday), and make my way to El Cid for more bands.
The service was generally good. As with any street festival, you always have people who have questions, etc. But overall, the vendors were great and all the volunteers, coordinators, and promoters who were all out there and visible were doing a great job.
Parking is a bit of a challenge simply due to the lack of it in the general and surrounding area. The old Circuit City location on Sunset Blvd. was the main parking site ($ 10.00), and then a complimentary shuttle would take you to the event. Or, you can try your luck (depending on the time you get there) and find parking on the many main and side streets surrounding the event. The event is taking place on a good section of Santa Monica Blvd. at Sunset Blvd., so you can imagine potential snafus. As for me, I parked on Sanborn Ave. at Sunset Junction at 5:45am for my shift, and went to drop off my t-​shirt to come back to a $ 63.00 parking ticket!!! I asked the parking enforcement lady why, and she said the streets of Sanborn and Hyperion Aves. Require special placards for residential parking only during certain times of the day. Maybe I should have read ALL of the signs that were posted on the street poles (seriously, there were five on the pole I read and the top two made it sound like it would be fine; the preferential sign was the four one down upon further review). At this time, since I already have the ticket, I grabbed my stuff and went back to the event. I guess I have all day parking now! Fuckers!!!
Overall, street festivals are always a joy for me, and from what I experienced thus far today, Jubilee should be a success. It had a nice variety of food trucks and merchandise vendors. From the band list, the music industry seems to be in a holding pattern as many of them are homogeneous of one another. But again, it’s a fun time to be out and about getting your grub on with tunes. I see complete value based on the prices quoted above, although I was fortunate enough not to have to pay for anything… yet. The atmosphere is completely casual and the mix of attendees was very eclectic and varied in age. I would like to mention that there were plenty of porto-​potties. And for the most part, most vendors accept my card of choice… AMEX!