Houston Flavors Festival
Foodies have a reason to skip the beach and stay in the city this weekend, as the Flavors Festival comes to Houston. This impressive culinary event brings Houston’s top chefs, restaurants and business owners together at Discovery Green Park for 12 hours of fabulous food and flavors. You can feel good about where your ticket price goes ($9 pre-sale, $15 at the event, under 10 free) as proceeds benefit the Houston Food Bank.
If you have visited Houston you already know what a diverse culinary community inhabits the city. In addition to the amazing BBQ and Mexican/Tex-Mex fare one would expect to find, Houston’s international flair represents ethnic flavors from far and wide: Thai, Vietnamese, Ethiopian, Greek/Italian/Mediterranean, Morroccan, the UK, French, Brazilian…to go on is to always leave someone out! There will also be live music, cooking competitions, eating competitions and more to keep you entertained (and perpetually hungry) all day long.
I especially recommend this event for visitors and newcomers to Houston. What better way to figure out where you want to eat than a festival where you can try a little bit of everything? There is nothing worse than going out to dinner, being disappointed in the food, and then having to throw down a lot of money on it. At the Flavors Festival you can scout the food from a variety of restaurants of every price point and culinary style. What a treat!
What: Houston Flavors Festival
When: Saturday May 29, 9 AM-9PM
Where: Discovery Green Park, 1500 McKinney (map)
Tickets: Tickets can be purchased online or by calling 800.745.3000. You can also purchase tickets at HEB, Fiesta, & Macys. Tickets include admission only - bring cash so you can buy food inside the festival. $9 presale, $15 at the event, free for children under 10.
Tips: Discovery Green Park is accessible by light rail, or you can drive and park. Click here for parking information for downtown Houston.
You can connect with the Flavors Fest on Facebook & Twitter.
Image courtesy of D’Mizonett Events/Flavors Festival 2010.
Tags: festival, food events
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4 Comments
We bought these tickets because it was an awesome price thru Stubdog and it seemed like something new/interesting to do based on all of the promises/propaganda on the Flavors Fest site. It seemed like it would be Taste of Houston(ish). (I’d been to Taste of Houston a couple of times and enjoyed it greatly.)
However, when we got there we were in utter disbelief. First of all there were like 15 tents there total. Of these tents about half were the usual festival crap – (marketing goods (pens, etc)/prize wheels to spin/informational brochures). 2 or so booths were giving away free food/beverage samples. There were like 2 or 3 selling stuff other than food.
That leaves about 4 or so that were actual selling food samples. There was NO big sampling pavilion. NONE of the vendors listed on their site were there.
It took like 30 minutes to visit every booth. I even had to ask if there was more somewhere else as surely this could NOT be it. Unfortunately it was. I felt so totally ripped off/cheated.
Luckily, I was a wonder with the prize wheel from some timeshare company and I won $40 in Houston Speedway drag racing tickets. I also scored a Cricket t-shirt from the Cricket wireless tent. Otherwise I would have been even more pissed.
In the end we felt really sorry for those people who paid more than the 7.50/ticket that we paid through stubdog.
My advice: Save your money and eat out somewhere in the AC instead. What to help out the food bank? Donate directly.
I absolutely agree with greagirl. This was the biggest waste of time, money, and sweat I have ever spent.
Aside from all the things greagirl mentioned, the event coordinators and management were HORRIBLE. Disorganized, bad communication skills (rude, rude and rude), and lack of experience in customer service and satisfaction. I had to argue with the manager for half an hour to get my money back. All he kept saying was “Well, you were the one that decided to come and purchase tickets. It’s not our fault that you made the choice to come”. Are you serious?!?!!!
The “cooking competitions and demonstrations” were a freaking joke. The MC was pathetic and left the audience wondering what in the world was going on in the kitchen and during judging. How are we supposed to just know what ingredients he is using or what technique or how it ended up tasting?? Ridiculous!! And the “judges” were a bunch of moronic students from HCC (the DUMB students).
The $9 online advance ticket purchase was a load of crap since Ticketmaster ended up tacking on so many fees that it all ended up being more than $15 per person. Plus, they make you go to “will call” to confirm your order and there was no “will call” list. The workers/volunteers and the main Coordinator/Manager were completely clueless. WASTED MY DAY AND PATIENCE. Ended up having to go to a restaurant for food.
If I wrote everything I wanted to say about this festival, I would end up writing a 10 page paper. Just trust me that you do NOT want to ever go to this.
Wow, I am really bummed to hear this
We ended up not being able to go because I had a last-minute deadline come up. I’m so sorry you didn’t have a good experience.