Savannah Food And Wine Festival

This is closer to a 3.5, with hopes that the festival can bump this up to a true 5 star event with time and experience. This is also for the Taste of Savannah event only, usually held on the last full day of events (Saturday) for the week of this festival.
I went to the first annual Savannah Food and Wine Festival Taste of Savannah last year in 2013. Tickets were a great deal through Living Social (2 for 1) so we couldn’t pass it up. We had a wonderful time! I would rate that event 4 stars alone. The crowd was good and the wine was plentiful. What I don’t like about the SFW is how they do the food. At other food and wine events, ticket prices include food samplings. (Atlanta F&W is an excellent example) SFW gives each ticket holder 5 tokens that can be used to «buy» food from a small smattering of food vendors. Last year, most food items were 3 – 5 tokens which made it difficult to try much without purchasing more tokens. You can buy additional ones for $ 1/​each. This year (2014 show), prices ranged from 2 – 5 tokens but the lines were LOOOOONG.
Which brings me to why the 2014 event wasn’t nearly as awesome and rates a 2. Word must’ve gotten out about the success of last year. We arrived to a line that was several blocks deep just to get in with previously purchased tickets. Granted, the line moved much faster than we thought — I timed it at about 15 minutes. But it was very clear that there were just way too many people here this year. Too many for the space, although they did have an extra area with additional vendors. There were lines at every wine and food booth. And many wine vendors ran out. Food eventually started to run out as well. Many people (ourselves included) were stuck with additional food tokens we purchased because we had nothing to spend them on. It was hard to move around through the crowds of people and, overall, it just wasn’t nearly as enjoyable as 2013.
I gave feedback to the organizers as far as capping future events and they replied saying this event did have a capacity limit. Yikes. I would re-​think what that limit is AND/​OR get a much larger venue (preferably indoors given the unpredictable weather in November) and prepare your vendors better. Make sure they can accommodate for the number for the full length of time. Everyone bought tickets, everyone should have the same experience. Many of us are traveling from out of town for this event. I wouldn’t even mind paying a higher ticket price if that meant doing away with the token thing. Atlanta’s festival started at $ 80 for early bird tickets this year and had a plethora of food vendors giving out food. Make it an enjoyable, worry-​free experience for your participants.
I will give them another shot next year and in hopes that improvements are made and they are back to having a successful end to a week full of food and wine events. I believe more people come out for the Taste than any other event during the week. It has great potential!