The Annual Florida Ice Cream Festival
http://www.floridaicecreamfestival.org/
I saw this billboard on I-4 about a week or so ago and knew I had to go. Not many people know of my love for ice cream. It's more than a love, really. I won't go so far as to call it an obsession, because I don't actually eat it all that often. But the word "love", with it's usual dilutions when associated with non-human things, is not strong enough to cover my feelings for ice cream.
You see, in addition to it being probably my favorite dessert in all of existence, it also has very strong associations with my dad. That was a *thing* we did. As a "daddy's girl", my dad was the feature in my childhood memories. We hunted together, he practiced soccer with me when I made the soccer team, we fished, we watched football, he taught me poker, and, later, as I got older, we watched what became my all-time favorite sitcoms and action movies together after dinner. And most of those memories had ice cream associated with them. Every hunting and fishing trip required a stop for a milkshake, and every night, in front of the TV, we'd have a bowl of ice cream together - vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup, stirred until all one, consistent, creamy-brown color. My mom *hated* it. The sound of the spoons scraping the bowls during the TV shows drove her nuts. But that was our thing. To this day, when I want emotional comfort, I eat vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup, all stirred together in one big creamy mess.
So there was no way I was going to miss the First Annual Florida Ice Cream Festival.
I want to start out by saying that I loved the food I got and I definitely plan to attend next year. But I have some criticisms, and the nature of this event may not be to everyone's liking. Just remember, throughout the critique, I liked it.
The Good
- The event had free parking right on site and was only $3 to get in. By the time I had arrived, they even stopped charging the entrance fee, so win!
- The food was amazing! At least, the ones I had were amazing. The prices were "reasonable", and by "reasonable", I mean that they were comparable with any specialty ice cream shop. So I'm sure you can find cheaper ice cream, even really good cheaper ice cream, at the grocery store. But if you go to Baskin Robbins, you'll probably pay the exact same price for a cup of ice cream as the Baskin Robbins booth right there at the festival.
- The music was entertaining. If you're a music snob, or you like only niche or certain sub-culture music, then you probably won't like it. It was family-friendly, non-offensive, and designed to keep up people's moods. I like music like that. I heard Beach Boys, The Electric Slide, and something from some current pop artist, maybe Tao Cruiz.
- I saw an Indian ice cream booth there! I didn't get any, but I was very pleased to see such an exotic booth. The only flavor I even recognized was mango, and if I had had enough money when I discovered it, I would have tried some.
- They had some activities besides just buying ice cream - mostly kids stuff. I saw a bounce house, pony rides, a rock climbing wall, and even a teeny-tiny mini golf course.
This was the first time this event has been put on. As with all big events like this, it takes some time to work out the bugs. There will be logistical issues and things that didn't get planned for, and these sorts of things will get better over time. At least, if they don't get better over time, the event won't continue to be held year after year. So most of my criticisms are the kinds of things that I expect to be better next year.
- They really did not expect the crowds they got and were not prepared. I arrived a little before 3 PM (open until 7 PM) and booths were already sold out, which is why they stopped charging admission.
- There were no lines drawn or flagged on the grass parking lot, so the lines of parking were crooked and slanted, and they actually ended up with huge amounts of wasted parking space because it wasn't quite enough room to add another lane but definitely too wide for just a normal driveway.
- Lines were long and unwieldy. The layout of the festival did not account for the long lines, so passerby traffic had to cut through the lines, and the lines stretched and curved and leaned into other booths - both next to and across the road. The booths themselves were not staffed to handle such a customer load, so the lines were also slow-moving.
- As usual for festival grounds, there wasn't a whole lot of shade. That's less of a problem if you're moving around and can get to the giant "Chill Pill" tent with all the tables, but because of the line problem, we were just standing still in the sun for unreasonably long amounts of time. I know there's not much they can do about that, since festival grounds, by nature, need to be wide open spaces. But maybe putting up a whole bunch of tents right over the road, kind of spaced along the road? Then, as we're walking down the road browsing the booths, we can pass under spots of shade, and people standing in lines that span across the road can maybe be standing under those tents?
- They needed more variety of non-dessert food. There was 1 burger stand, 1 Italian sausage stand, 1 hot wings stand, and 1 stand with fries that sold out right around the time I got there. There needed to be some non-dessert options that weren't $6+. The fries were a good start, but, as I said, they sold out early. A corn on the cob stand might have been a good option. A falafel food truck or a burrito truck or hot dogs or something. Anything that could have served some kind of side dish for approximately the same price range as the ice cream and even a single option that a vegetarian could have would have been nice (although they did have non-dairy & vegan ice cream - naturally it was already sold out by the time I got there). I know it was an ice cream festival, but people will be more willing to stay longer, and more willing to buy more sweets, if there are actual meal options that are affordable and options to cut the sweet so that we don't go into a sugar coma.
- The drink booth was also not prepared for the size of the crowd. They needed more coolers, more helpers, and more drink options. There was Gatorade, water, Pepsi, and Diet Pepsi. That's it. Canned tea for those who need something with flavor but not more sweet, and Sprite for the non-caffeine drinkers who might want a soda instead of Gatorade or water would have been really appreciated.
- Everything was standard specialty ice cream shop sized. I'd rather see the festival organized more like Epcot's Food & Wine festival, where everything is more like taste-sized, so that we can go from booth to booth, sampling a wider variety of foods. $1 shot glasses of ice cream would be way better than $3 cups of ice cream. Also, it might not sell out as fast.
- All food was purchased with Moo-lah, fake money that you pre-purchased and then exchanged for the food. I ended up with a Moo-lah dollar that I couldn't spend, because there wasn't anything there for a dollar (well, maybe some of the activities were, I don't know because I didn't even look at the bouncey house or the pony rides or the mini golf course).
Next year, I would recommend, first, arriving early, then only buying your entrance ticket, then walking the entire grounds to decide what you want, and THEN buying your Moo-lah so that you only purchase the fake dollars that you plan to spend. It didn't occur to me to do that until I was already inside & had purchased my fake money, although I knew they sold the fake money inside. As I saw "sold out" signs going up all over the place and lines so long and curvy that I couldn't find the ends, I decided to just jump in the first line that had something I wanted, and each line as I came to it, rather than planning out my spending. I was afraid I would decide on something back in the beginning and it would be sold out before I circled back after looking at everything.
Even better, if you go with someone(s), plan what you want to buy, then split up - one (or more) of you stands in line for food while one runs to a Moo-lah booth to buy fake money. Then the person with the money can deliver it by the time the person in the food line gets to the front. If you can go with several, have one money runner and everyone else wait in different food lines to get everyone's food in each booth. Then meet up at the picnic tables.
Although I liked the flavors of ice cream I got, and although there was a nice variety of brands present, I would have liked to have seen A) more exotic flavors and B) a plain vanilla/plain chocolate option.
I know, that sounds like I'm asking a lot. What I'm suggesting, though, is that this is a festival celebrating ice cream, and all the vendors are local vendors with shops or food trucks here town. We can go to these shops any time we want to. So I think it would benefit them to showcase some of their more unusual, exotic, or specialty flavors as a hook to catch the attention of the thousands of attendees who might be considering the competing shop right next door. But, at the same time, *someone* has to have the old classics for those who attended for exactly that reason. What I'm saying is that I saw the same handful of flavors over and over again - cotton candy, birthday cake, strawberry, chocolate chip cookie dough, cookies N cream, etc.
Don't get me wrong, there were some unique flavors. I had an excellent banana pudding frozen custard that I just adored! And there probably was more variety that I missed because of all the booths that had sold out before I got there. But I didn't get any fruit-based, non-cream desserts like a strawberry popsicle, and the Shamrock Explosion that I was originally in line for sold out 3 people ahead of me, leaving the entire line with only the banana pudding and the coconut custard options. I think this was clearly an underestimation problem that is to be expected with a first-year event. It's very difficult to estimate what will sell and what won't. It's why I use a third-party one-off printer instead of printing my shirts in bulk and handling the sales myself. I've seen too many merchants end up with too many left-over t-shirts and other shirts sell out immediately, all because predicting what will sell is hardly an exact science.
So, it was hot, it was crowded, the lines were long, the food sold out early, and there wasn't enough of the food I wanted. I still want to go back next year. I think pretty much everything I had a problem with is something to be expected for a first-time event, so I hold out hope that every single one of them will improve next year. If outdoor festivals aren't your thing, then you'll probably want to skip this unless your love of ice cream is stronger than your dislike of outdoor festivals. But if you love ice cream, this was a pretty good event. it was relatively inexpensive and I got exposed to a ton of ice cream brands that I didn't even know were local shops. It was a nice day out, if too hot while standing in line in the sun without a hat, sunglasses, or sunscreen on and a poor decision to wear full jeans & a t-shirt with sleeves but that was my mistake, and I liked the music. Really, it's not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon, and I expect it to be better next year.
But now I need to go eat something with protein & complex starch, to cut all that sugar. Wish I had some salad-fixings in the house - add a little egg & a roll & it would fix the whole thing!