Scenes from the Beer and Bacon Classic

I was invited to attend the first Bacon and Beer Classic held at SAFECO Field on Saturday night. Generally speaking, I have a little bit of trepidation about attending large, first-time, events since it just seems to take a trial or two until the organizers can pull together an event that really works. However,  the words “Bacon and Beer” seduced me, and I sent in my “yes” RSVP.

These guys did a lot of things right: booths were nicely spread around the perimeter in small groups; there were things to do besides just eating and drinking from ongoing musical entertainment to a whole section of grown-up sized games; the number of tastes and bites allotted was a generous, 25 of each, and there was no messing with buying extra tickets; the spaces between the vendor groupings were great for taking a moment to enjoy whatever you were drinking/munching and if you wanted to sit for a few minutes there was plenty of seating!  Also, the small, porcelain, red “Solo” cups were cute and clever.

A couple of things that could be improved for next year: please do not schedule this event on the same night as a soccer match or a football game, as far as that goes; some participants ran out of food, which is always disappointing. This event had both an afternoon and evening session and, it appeared, some of the vendors did not open at all for the second session, while several others closed down about an hour into the four-hour evening event.

 
While beer is beer, no changes needed for this event, the food offered fell into three categories: something original, interesting and tasty created especially for the event; bacon randomly added to something normally offered; and things that just had bacon tossed on top to meet the criteria. I’d say there was about one-third of each type, but I’d hoped for more of the “interesting and tasty” type. Of course, it could be that all the places that were no longer serving (and there were several) fell into that  first category and I missed out by attending the evening session instead of the afternoon session.  In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s the case as I see photos from the afternoon session.

Would I go again? Maybe. This year I cut short a day-trip to get back in time. I wouldn’t do that next year but I’d probably attend if I was around and in town.