Stroll the Strip

Sorry. This event didn’t cut it for me.
Price: 45.00 via online. 2 tickets plus service fee of 8.50 came to 98.50. This for (I believe) 19 venues.
Goods: More alcohol than food; more beer than wine and one whiskey offering. Not a kid-​friendly nor non-​beer friendly event. At Lidia’s, they had nice meatballs and bread but then only offered beer to go with it, no alternative such as water to wash down the food. Parma Sausage knew how to do it right. They had a huge table of samplings of their products and water! How nice that was.
Venues: While it was nice that the event ran until 8pm, it was disappointing that a lot of merchants didn’t participate and, thus, were closed to patrons of the Stroll event. Being new to the area, I thought this would be an ideal event to check out the Strip and what it had to offer. That is why I opted to pay the hefty price for this event. Alas, some merchants I would have liked to visit such as Mon Aimee Chocolat and Pennsylvania Macaroni Company were non-​participants and were closed by the time I was there. Another, Wholey’s, opted to only participate in the event from 4:30 until 5:30, pretty much preventing anyone who works an office job to partake. Roland’s was offering beer samples but the bartenders appeared overworked and understaffed for the event while trying to tend to paying customers, as well. I did like visiting Kindred Cycles, a new bike shop. It was a great opportunity to visit a new merchant on the strip. I also enjoyed In the Kitchen and the cotton candy martini, as well as shopping around their store. Primanti’s offering of chili was good, too.
Crowds: There weren’t any when we were there around 6:30pm to 8:00pm. Most venues had not a single person in line to partake of their offerings, except for Parma Sausage which was pleasantly packed.
Note that I didn’t visit all the venues; didn’t really want any more beer or wine than what I already had.
I’ve been to a similar event in another city, Nashua, NH, that is successful so I know what success looks like. Here are my final thoughts on this event:
1) Overpriced. 25.00 vs. 45.00 would have been a better price point. I definitely didn’t eat or drink 45.00 worth. For that price I want a tablecloth, seat, and someone to wait on me or, at the very least, the best offerings from the top-​notch restaurants in the area.
2) More merchants need to buy in and be part of the event or at least stay open to make this worthwhile.
3) Make it more kid-​friendly or non-​alcohol friendly. There needs to be more merchants available offering something other than alcohol to be a better-​balanced event. Don’t get me wrong. I like alcohol but the event seems like a one-​note song.
4) It wasn’t a total waste of time. We came, we saw, we ate at Kaya’s for dinner (because we sure weren’t full from this event) and had a great meal; however the night was expensive.