Kicking off the Greater Cincinnati's festival season, Covington's Maifest celebrates the area's…read moreGermanic tradition of heralding the arrival of spring wines. However, I think Maifest is little more about beer and brats, but fun nonetheless. The 2008 event kicks off Friday, May 16th and runs until Sunday, May 18th. If the weather is nice, Maifest will be packed as tightly as Northern German sardines. Good luck trying to navigate with a stroller or wheelchair. Yet, given Cincinnati's unpredictable spring weather, chances are pretty good that there will at least be scattered showers, scaring away half of the crowd to a number that's manageable. Drinkers, your best bet is to purchase a collectors mug, which can be refilled at vendors' booths for a discount over individual beer price. And you're making Mother Nature proud. The beer selection is mostly domestic (unfortunately), but Warsteiner's there to keep things semi-authentic. For families, there are tons of food booths and artisans selling their wares, even "gypsies" reading your palms or tarot cards. Kiddies will love the carnival rides and games set up in the 5th street parking lot. Oompa bands and men in Lederhosen rock the crowd Bavarian style, but if that's not your style you can pop into any of the MainStrasse bars for more contemporary jams. There will invariably be someone who can't hold their liquor and will embarrass themselves terribly in front of a crowd of 150,000. But you'll walk away with a renewed sense of Schadenfreude. Prost!

While I understand that Braxton Brewery is the one sponsoring this event, and the Mainstrauss…read moresociety association has shut its doors, I feel like this festival fell flat. It was only on one street really and in the park. Growing up I remember there being rides, games, more vendors, and more German Beer. Where was the German Beer??? The whole reason why I come to these events is for the delicious beer like Hefweizen, Weiss Beer, and Dunkels. It was all lame Braxton beers and a handful of overpriced cocktail vendors. They also had country music playing which REALLY didn't make it feel German at all. Cmon Braxton! Get it together, you call this a German Festival?? It felt rushed, and Hodgepodge. Also, why is it only on one street! Mainstrauss is huge and used to have vendors and shops and food all the way down to the fountain. I give it 2 stars. Maybe it'll grow, but this should be a way bigger event with rides and more games and activities for families and kids, like it used to be in the 90s and 2000s. I recommend expanding into more than just a few shops selling the same candle, jewelry, and incense merch as well.

Cincinnati Grill at Goettafest needs to step it up. Some of the offerings are sub par (Cincinnati…read moreGrill) Hoping for more from other vendors. We liked the spicy kick of the Goetta slab at Reuben's. Will keep you posted!

Awesome time for everything goetta! Their menu items are always so creative and involve generous…read moreportions of goetta. This year we also particularly enjoyed their air conditioned tent and live music as well! If you love goetta, creativity, and variety then look no further for your next place to get it and put this on the calendar the next time it come around.

The Taste of Cincinnati is an event I always look forward to each year and I have to say that 2026…read morewas much better than 2025! This year there was a larger variety of cuisine types. Last year I felt like I was at a Texas Rodeo with only BBQ options. Highlighting our Cinci Food Trucks and Findlay Market restaurants is always one of my favorite parts. Most if not all restaurants in his year we're showcasing specialty items so it was great to see different options vs everyone having pulled pork bbq or cheeseburgers and so I had the opportunity to try so many things and places that I didn't even know about. Service was also very quick at almost every stop so no long lines, food was hot and the workers were all friendly. Being outside is always a treat and i was thankful it was warm, not HOT, partly cloudy and not sun blazing. This is a great family friendly event, if you haven't gone before, hit it up in 2027!!

Have been coming for 30 yrs. Love to find new places to check out and try new things. Tried to come…read moreyesterday but the rain got real. But today was gorgeous. We usually come when they start as the crowd and lines are fair less. Everything we tried was good and enjoyed the live music. My hubby is not a dancer but I would have like to dance a bit. Anyway great day here with gorgeous weather.

This is always a fun festival which celebrates my heritage Italian. There is rides for the kids, a…read morebooth of local Italian families pictures and many food and drink booths. Alfios Pompillios just to name a couple of restaurants serving their delicious Italian fare. Also cannolis, Italian beer and music all day. Even if you are not Italian you can pretend at the festival

Italianfest is simply ok in my book. I definitely think it has potential to be something much more,…read moreso hopefully it can raise the bar to compete with other culturally focused festivals in the area (Panegyri, Oktoberfest, etc). This year had plenty of food vendors but the offerings were not that appealing after our walk through. We fortunately split some great pasta (vendor currently doesn't have a brick&mortar location) and each of us ate a tasty cannoli since festival calories do not count at all :) If you are seeking simple, often from scratch food, you will be in luck and should find something to devour. To any vendors reading this, please have a legible menu posted high above the crowd so that passersby can read it. Lines tended to be long and most vendors were *LISTEN UP: Ca$h Only. I actually had cash on me but the long lines at the portable ATM signified that many others lacked such an important item. The crowd was very thick at times and props to those with strollers that attempt to swim upstream against everyone. ha ha Parking is probably best had at the nearby Newport on the Levee garage or surrounding lots. Much of the surrounding neighborhood is for residents only.

Yes, this is a well-known multi-state yard sale that involves Hamilton Avenue in Cincinnati, and…read moreyou really need to check it out once, just to say that you've been there. But my experience is that it's over-rated and misnamed. It's really a long string of flea markets. Most of the stops are either higher-priced items, specialty collector items, or picked-over items (you can get all the cheap glassware and worn-out pots you want here). I prefer real yard sales, where you can obtain good quality items, are dealing with the original owner, and are paying original prices, not ones marked up by each hand it's gone through. And the goal of the seller isn't to make a big profit -- it's to get rid of items and have relaxed conversations with their neighbors --- that's the real spirit of yard sales.

This was actually the first thing we did when we moved to Cincinnati. Quite literally. We pulled…read moreinto the Queen City, saw a billboard advertising that it was happening that day, and decided to check it out. What was a crazy mass of people grabbing for as many chocolate treats as possible has only gotten crazier. Our first visit saw a fighting chance. Now, talking to vendors to learn about them, and their craft is nearly impossible. The stream of people keeps pushing forward, and one gets swept away from the booths. As the event has grow, this has continued to be the case. (All pre COVID, not sure how this will be safely handled in the future.) While we have tried some amazing treats, thus introducing us to some amazing local businesses, it is hard to truly enjoy the experience. Chocolate should be savored. It is hard to do that here. The only exception is the children's play area. This is consistently a ghost town. My children have enjoyed playing the games, gettibg balloons, or whatever else has been offered. The area is kind of like a section of an elementary school carnival.

I attended this event with my sister in 2014. There is a whole lot of chocolate here. Yum! You…read morestart out with tickets for tastings at the different vendors and there is the opportunity to purchase additional tickets at the event. There were A LOT of different vendors and a lot of chocolaty things to see. I recommend walking through at least once so that you can decide what samples you are most interested in tasting. My only complaint is that the later it gets in the day the more congested the event is. We arrived right when it opened and that was a VERY wise decision. We were kind of crammed together with loads of other pushy people right before we left and that was not ideal. We also upgraded to tickets that included the Bella Luna lounge and wine tasting. This was a great value. Bella Luna provided small bites of (not chocolate) food like pasta and bruchetta. There were 5 wine tastings included in the price and they were very generous pours. I would attend again.

This is a fun event where you can laugh all night being entertained by comedians and also enjoy…read morebeers so many beers. Lagers shandys sweet beers and IPAS. I tasted a lime shandy so so good and a beer called little buns. Very refreshing. There are food trucks with food such as steak sandwiches empanadas bbq sandwiches. I ordered the potato and eggplant empanada and it was very delicious. It's a a night for of laughter and beer. Life is good.

While I'm not a partaker of alcohol of any kind, I am a connoisseur of stand-up comedy - and this…read moreevent allows for an overdose of laughs from a variety of different comics. With four different stages set up, there's a little something for everyone. Observational humor, hilarious stories, and sometimes just plain weird stuff - it's all at Brew Ha-Ha. I did sample a few of the food trucks including a Burger truck and a BBQ truck, which I'll review separately. Soft drinks were only available at one specific stand, which I guess makes sense given this is a beer festival but it did make things inconvenient for a non-drinker like me. My favorite comedian, Chad Daniels, flew in to town from Minneapolis for this event and destroyed the stage under the tunnel. I didn't catch Preacher Lawson's set on the main stage, but he was on last year's America's Got Talent and did well there so I'm sure he was fun to watch. Many of my favorite local comedians took to the various stages and I was able to enjoy sets from some of them like Ran Barnaclo, Anna Mazza, Lee Kimbrell, Grant Stiles, and many more. The weather was perfect, the comedy was funny, and the crowds seemed to be having a great time. It was about as perfect an event as you could ask for!

Lumenocity 2016 was held at the Taft Theatre this year. What sets this year different from other…read moreyears is that the light show was indoors this year. And, since it was indoors, they were able to offer more tickets for everyone to come and see the event. In addition to that, there were about three-four shows for each day the event occurred, (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday). Getting to Taft Theatre was pretty easy, and since there wasn't a game going on that weekend it wasn't super crowded in downtown Cincinnati. Parking lots were easy to find. Once you parked, the block party they had in front of Taft Theatre was easy to get to. There were about five or six food trucks, and lots of activities for kids. There was even police presence throughout the festival. This year, you were able to get a wristband ahead of time once they scanned your ticket to expedite getting into the Theatre. But really, it was pretty easy to get in even without getting a wristband ahead of time. They did a great job at handling the crowd before the show. Once inside, it was easy to find your seat. The show started on time which was great! And, it was only 45 minutes which is long enough to be able to enjoy the music, but short enough that all the kids in the audience would not get bored. Seeing the light show indoors was nice, because the lights came out more vibrant compared to watching it outside projected onto a wall. And, you had assigned seating, so you didn't have to worry about saving your seat ahead of time. If you didn't want to pay to see the show, they also broadcasted it outside where the block party was. Overall this year's event was enjoyable. They had some technical difficulties leading up to the event, but it was solved by the time the event started. (The company they used to email the etickets to everyone somehow had their emails come up as spam so a majority of people did not get their tickets by the Monday it was promised. They updated their website letting people know that they were working with finding a new company to send out everyone's etickets. The tickets were delivered on Thursday night).

Amazed I'm the first to (create/review) this absolutely amazing event. This is the second year for…read moreLumenocity, and it was Fantastic!! I was out of town last year at Lollapalooza, sleeping on a boat, when the inogural Lumenocity happened, but luckily I have a friend that was so impressed that he got Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra season tickets JUST to be eligible for the tix to Lumenocity 2014! The event 2014 had food/beer(Rhinegeist) trucks down Race Street, all kinds of vendors, food and Cincy local craft artists in the treed part of the park. This part was open to people without tix to the actual event, and it was food/art festival that was more attended than anything I've seen in Washington park, and I'm there weekly. The show: The show was spectacular. YouTube it. If you haven't been, YouTube the hell out of Lumenocity, and share it. Make it viral. One of the best symphonies in the world, synchronized to amazing digital graphics, using one of Cincinnati's best landmarks(Cincinnati Music Hall) as a canvas. It is amazing, emotional, and one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time.

If you like food, live music, and beer in a relaxed non-elbow-bumping atmosphere, this is the…read morefestival for you. Located on the beautiful Riverfront Levee in Newport, KY, this is a small, family-friendly festival celebrating Greater Cincinnati's Germanic culinary traditions. My favorite feature is the small tent stage featuring local acoustic musicians. They lose one star because the band at the big stage played "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy" while I was there.

Sausage, Beer and Music in hot weather . . . what can be better!…read more I was able to make it to the 2014 Queen City Sausage Festival during a weekend in Cincinnati. I had lots of fun and the Sausage was great.

It was a great way to kick off the holiday season. I love that there was an outdoor craft show at…read moreWashington Park at the same time, so I got a "two-fer." I shopped there for the traditional arts and crafts gifts, then went into the side door of Music Hall (yes, at you're looking at it, the fair can only be accessed through the left-hand side door of music hall) for unique artist-made crafts. I didn't buy much -- just a silk-screened t-shirt and some tasty Jalapeno jelly -- it was the perusing itself, and talking directly to the artists that was the joy of the season. And I had some great, animated conversations with the artists themselves, who were helpful and excited to talk about their work. Yes, these are hand-made specialty items, so the price was high. But it is going directly to the artists, so it is worth it.

My first time attending the Crafty Supermarket, and it did not dissapoint. The space is beautiful…read moreand uplifting - warm, inviting, roomy, and festive. The booths were very high-end, offering great design and well-made products. Eli's BBQ was there, along with a bar, coffee stand, and gelto. It wasn't very crowded when we went, so take that for what it is. YMMV. Be prepared to spend some serious cash, also. I didn't buy many things, but the bill was high. I like supporting artists and designers, so I don't mind, but it certainly isn't a budget shopping experience.