TosaFest

Tosa Fest is a nice little community festival — essentially they block off State Street for a few blocks and have a couple of stages with cover bands. This year the action has spilled over across the bridge — they’ve set up more of a «carnival» area there with games, a rock climbing wall, etc. Which is nice, because it keeps the kids busy and away from the beer tents.
Food is a good mix of local Tosa places — think Hue, Bartolottas, Maxie’s and the like. Prices are a little higher than they should be but not completely outrageous. Some of the food booths are staffed by local charities — the fire dept runs the corn booth and another group was selling Chick-​Fil-​A sandwiches.
I didn’t see much in the way of bathroom facilities so that could potentially be a problem. On the plus side, they’ve implemented new rules that after 3pm anyone under 18 has to be accompanied by a parent (sounds like they are worried about underage drinking?). On the minus side, the place is absolutely PACKED with monster truck strollers. I’ll take the teenagers any day, thank you very much.
We’ve lived in the area for 13 years and have only hit this fest up a few times. It’s nothing special but fun if you happen to be in the area or can walk there (because parking is not easy).

Fun experience with room for improvements.
First — don’t charge me a dollar a ticket, then charge 5 tickets (dollars) for a beer — what a waste! Why not just charge dollars and save the time of those selling tickets and save the hassle of getting tickets in the first place… just sell it for the cash you are required to have anyways.
Second — The food portion sizes (I only ate at Ono Kine Grindz) were extremely small. For over 8 tickets (dollars) I got a small styrofoam cup!
Third — I wish that they would have been able to have the music on the designated stage in the grass instead of on the street. Hard to hear with all the obstructions
Overall it was really fun, a good turn out for Tosa and the 5k went smoothly on Saturday night. Would come back next year!

I really like this festival. It’s family-​oriented with tons of kids running around and truly feels like a neighborhood festival. The food selection is wide with yummy offerings from neighborhood restaurants. I love that in addition to music, they have activities and fun things to do.
My only complaint would be of the production quality at both stages. Both stages’ sound/​lighting was so-​so with one of the stages not being loud enough to hear over the crowd talking and the other stage was dark and hard to see the performers.

Best festival ever! It’s not fancy but the streets are closed and there is plenty of food music and beer!