So excited that the full festival is back! For a long time after COVID, there was just the food…read moretruck and baked goods, which have always been a wonderful treat. Adding a huge tent with live music, Greek dancing, and lots of tables for seated dining made for a marvelous community experience.

Annual Greek Festival was affordable and less crowded Greek festival then other similar festivals…read more People danced and there was a lot of food - something for everybody. The food was very good and servers not stressed out, but very accommodating. There were no food lines and there was a plenty space to sit. The best part was a glass for Greek draft beer that the servers kindly wash for you (after beer is gone) before you take it home as a memento. This is my tenth different Greek festival I attended at it was not the best or worst but it was the only one that offered a glass to take home. I wish other 70 ethnic festivals offered it as well - I would have had quite a collection. I was happy to support a Greek church in America. Opa!

Please never apply for becoming part. They collect only your $40 for the jury fee. See what they…read moresent to my ZAPP - "Thank you for applying to the 27th Annual Frederick Festival of the Arts. We regret to inform you that your work has not been juried into this year's event. We had a large pool of applicants and appreciate you taking the time to apply. On behalf of the Frederick Arts Council, best of luck with the rest of the festival season! ~Jasmine & the Festival Committee." Cheaters!

This is a fun outdoor event, we visit every year. There is tons of art for sale at various price…read morepoints (something for everyone) along with food, entertainment, and activities for the kids. You can't go wrong with an event that runs along beautiful Carroll Creek Linear Park.

This was the first year that we went to the festival, so I can't comment on past venues, but I was…read morepleasantly surprised by the location along the creek. I wasn't sure what to expect when we walked up since the line was wrapped around the block and all the way back to the library, but there was a surprising amount of room and everybody was very chill (unlike some of the local winery festivals that we've been to). I'm very happy that none of the breweries followed the VIP only beers rule and that additional tokens could be purchased. I wasn't sure what to expect since MD breweries are only allowed to give out a small amount of samples and can't sell additional beer. I also loved that kids were allowed, but there was no entertainment for them. We saw a few new parents who were relieved to get out of the house and some embarrassed teenage dd's, but it was a pleasant change to go to a Frederick festival for adults that didn't have a bouncy house and rug rats with face paint running around. My only wish is that there were more food vendors selling drunk food. Get some appetizer-sized grease and bread stuff involved and you would have had to drag me out of there. Instead we headed out for and early dinner because we needed something in our stomachs (besides beer).

The Maryland Craft Beer Festival did not disappoint again this year! The line to get in looks…read morereally long, but it goes by fast. The festival takes place on one side of the Carroll Creek. There were about 45 different breweries and the $40 ticket price is a steal! Everything was organized well and the lines to get beers were long, but they moved quick! 1:30 to 5:00 was a good amount of time to sample everything I wanted to. They do have a VIP option which gets in at 12 instead of 1:30 if you want an extra hour of drinking and a little less crowding. I also used the cleanest porta-potty ever, especially for a beer festival. Im not sure if no one knew about them at the end of the creek or everyone was sweating too much to need to use them or what but it was a very pleasant surprise! The only thing I did not like and would consider changing for next year was all of the the strollers and the children. I know it sounds bad but it is a beer festival. Strollers take up so much space and the festival was already a little crowded and hard to squeeze by in some spots. Also, in my opinion I am not sure a beer festival is the greatest place to bring young children, there are no activities for them to do and people want to be able to drink and have conversations and not worry there are young children around.

It's seems to be an issue with special needs children. They want to charge the caregiver as well…read morewhen in kiddie rides. I have a 8 year old with special needs and the people scanning tickets would scan twice. I don't thinks it's fair because an adult is not enjoying the ride as much as the child does. They need to be more in tune with special needs or give a pass for caregivers.

The GREAT Frederick fair is an event not to miss!…read more Celebrating over 150 years, this fair is the epitome of the past and the present. Where else can you see blue ribbon tomatoes from local gardens, taste wines from the vineyards all around Maryland, see a concert with a relevant country artist, ride the rides, and eat the latest deep-fried desert deliciousness? For eight bucks? We were seriously blown away. Daughter and I found parking for five dollars within 100 feet of the main entrance. There were acres and acres of rides and games and all the usual carnival stuff! There was a fun house that looked like the one in "Grease", and of course the old standbys like the giant Ferris wheel, the zipper, the tilt a whirl, and the octopus. There were many many more. You could spend the whole day and go on all the rides. And of course there are arcades of all sorts that you can win anything from a live fish to a giant low-quality stuffed animal. And they had all the deep-fried stuff. We had a funnel cake with ice cream and sprinkles that was the size of an apple pie. But we could've tried the deep-fried Twinkies, or the deep-fried Snickers bar had we had it in us. Perusing the agricultural barns was really fun to see the winning zinnias, tomatoes, and senior art projects. For a moment I felt like I was in 1917 not 2017! At night the fair lit up with all the moving parts of all the rides in with huge crowds and the country singer in the background and it really was a feel good old fashion way to spend the evening, dazzling the senses on a warm Indian summer eve.

This was an alright event. It worked out way better if you were VIP. For that status it had some…read moreperks to it and it allowed you to arrive 1 hour before the General admission. So VIP arrived by 11am. There was a line but it moved pretty fast. Part of the VIP status for twenty dollars more included A beer bacon glass. A lanyard. The lanyard was pretty cool. We also got to go to Roy Rogers stand and they were giving away bacon cheeseburgers and chicken sandwiches to the VIP only. We opted for the Bacon cheeseburger. It was good l might add. They had a line inside for the variety of bacon. You know it's true about the early bird catches the worm. In this case it was the Bacon. They had a variety of selections and l know l went back at least four times. I tried the jalapeno Bacon and the old Bay bacon. Regular bacon. The peppered bacon, pork belly, & bacon jam. They also had a nice selections of beer. I was so excited to have the Two things that l enjoy together. I thought the General admission cup they gave you was a joke. It's no way l would do this at GA price. Just add twenty dollars more and you will be much happier. Do we plan on returning next year. Oh most definitely but as VIP only.

It's time for another episode of... Pros and Cons!…read more Pro: Great potential. People who love beer, bacon, and music should be able to find something they like at this event and enjoy their passions. The website is clean and informative, and the festival includes alot of great ideas. An all-you-can-eat bacon bar? Over 100 beers to try? Bands spanning multiple music genres playing every hour of the day? Sounds awesome Con: In order to enjoy these things, you had to enter the fairgrounds through one of three entrances, where festival-goers had to show IDs and receive bracelets, a map, and a tasting glass. Sounds simple, but the event coordinators failed to account for the fact that everyone would show up around noon to get in. Well, if you showed up late, you had to wait an hour in a line around the block. We arrived around 12:30 and didn't enter until 1:43. And at a festival that is only 6 hours long, that is approximately 1/6th of the 1-day pass wasted. There are multiple ways to avoid this (staggered entrance, better venue, open gates earlier, more staff, more entrances), but no one thought of this and people were VERY upset. Pro: Once we were in, the BEER was flowing. Many choice local, regional, and national beers. You would wait in line for a brewery for maybe 2-3 minutes, and then get to the front and choose which variety you wanted, tossing a coin into a bucket for donation to a charity. You would get maybe 3-4oz of beer in your tasting glass (larger glass for VIPs) and then wait in another line while you sampled one variety. Many breweries handed out coasters, and it was a festive, fun time. Con: The BACON bar was very poorly planned. What was advertised? An all-you-can-eat bacon bar with 2 tons of different varieties of bacon to satisfy bacon lovers. Now, a pound of bacon is about 15 pieces of thin-cut bacon, so assuming 1-ton per day, that is 30,000 pieces of bacon for the day. The problem? They couldn't cook it fast enough. There was a 15-minute wait in a long line to get to the bacon bar, and when you got there, there were 4 empty buffet trays and one tray of applewood-smoked bacon being shoveled carelessly into paper trays, along with some pork rinds and a sauce bar. I got 3 pieces of 1 variety of bacon and two pork rinds. There was your 'all-you-can-eat' bacon bar. Pro: The MUSIC portion was decent. After missing the first two bands waiting in line outside the festival, we did enjoy the Rockaway Beach Boys (a Ramones cover band) and local garage-folk band Skribe. I can't speak to the Sunday bands, but we liked both the bands we heard. I even looked up Skribe on ReverbNation later. Cons: A few other bummers. The cigar patio ran out of cigars when we were 10 places back in line, but we didn't even know that was an option until we saw the map. The bacon a la carte options for sale (candies, jams, desserts, and entrees) were lacking, a very poor overall selection, though we did enjoy our chili dog from Volt. The ticket price did NOT cover parking, and the beer tents were so packed together it was difficult to navigate the grounds; they could have spread the tents out. Overall, I don't think I would come back. Great vision, but they need to hire someone who has run an event before to think of problems before they happen. Better venue, more execution for the bacon bar, better system for screening IDs, and a better experience for the $45 price.

We came here on the first Saturday it was open and it was extremely crowded. They had several…read moreparking lots that costed $15 so we went to the one that did not have a price on it as we assumed it was free. It ended up being $10 which we didn't know until we were already inside the lot. Then we had to wait for the tractor tram to take us to the side door which had a lot of dust. I ended up using a napkin to cover my nose so I wouldn't breathe it in. There is an admission fee which is $10 per person then inside, there was no map so we peed in a porta potty. I had a good time looking at the horses, cows, pigs, and goats. They were super close up and the opportunity to see such a view is very rare. The carnival games were very expensive, Ferris wheel was $6 per person and there is a fee to buy a card to allow you to ride the rides, and there is a credit card convenience fee for every purchase. A corn dog was $8 and also had a cc fee. The lines for each ride was about 20-30 minutes. I usually go to the Howard county fair which was way cheaper. They had free parking, rides were only $2 per person on the Thursday I went, and admission fee was cheaper.

Great is one word to describe the Frederick Fair…read more Enormous Gargantuan Huge-gantic a few others. Luckily I got there at around 3 in the afternoon. By the time I left there were lines of cars stretching for miles in each direction trying to get into the fair. They had rides galore. Like there was at least like 4 different rides that resembled Tilt-O-Whirls. There was funnel cake, bbq, popcorn, nuts and everything else you'd expect to be a at a large fair. And then there was the animals section. Hundreds of animals that included, but was not limited too: sheep, cows, goats, rams, horses, donkeys, geese, turkeys, pigs, and more. A special baby animal tent where you could see animals that had recently been born. A swath of of educational farming activities and exhibits. I mean, it was surely a farmers dream. The 4H kids there were competing and showing their animals. An experience that I have never had before. Ever seen someone bring out a goat by holding it's head and trot it around for a judge to see what pedigree it was. It was like a dog show but with cows and goats and what not. They had a small beer garden at one end of the fair where I was able to try a "Feed The Monkey" beer which, as expected, had subtle notes of banana and burnt sugar. And to top it off, the Amish were there, selling their amazing pretzels, whoopie pies, and more. One thing is for sure; People in Frederick are serious about their fairs.