I didn't know what to expect, but I know I wanted to go to a chocolate festival as soon as I saw…read morethe poster. Parking: there's paid parking in the convention center but if you go on a Sunday, you can find street parking a little further out from the center. Event: there were a ton of free samples from all the vendors that were there. I don't think they advertise the samples enough. I feel like I didn't even go in expecting a ton of samples, but there were a lot so get ready to eat a ton of chocolate. Even though all the pieces were cut into small bites, after so many samples, you will definitely get your fill of chocolate. I like that they had variety from different countries and type types of chocolates and beverages as well. I appreciate it that there was a lot of different talks in different rooms on both days. You can almost spend the entire time listening to the talks. You get to learn a lot about chocolates, where it comes from, how to make truffles, and how to use chocolates. Lots of different topics for everyone. The price tag is pretty high, but I was able to find a Groupon so I'm very happy with that. As with any of these two day festivals, the first day is very crowded but you will be able to buy things that are not sold out. Sunday was super chill, but many things were already sold out . I will be back next time for sure!

First time attending this festival and there was definitely a lot that I enjoyed about it and some…read morethings I would do differently next time. The other reviews are from many years ago and mentioned issues with the location but it's in Bellevue now (not sure how long it's been there) but had no issues with the location. Obviously if you live in Seattle, that would be a different story but it was super convenient right next to the light rail station. SO much chocolate to taste. I appreciate the tables that have self service tastings where you can grab your own. The ones where you have to ask for them to hand you samples, is not efficient at all. Some of them were too crowded that you couldn't even see what was on the table because of others tasting and chit chatting with the employees. The presentations are interesting but they don't necessarily make enough samples for everyone so everyone on our side of the rows didn't get anything and had to watch the rest of the room taste their samples. So get a seat near the front, in the middle. They are an hour long so they do take up a good chunk of time if you do more than one if you are doing general admission (which is 11am-5pm). You can bring your own water bottles, there are refill stations, or your own snacks. Just know that your taste buds will be shot after all those samples and you will need a chocolate break for a while after the event. Bring a reusable bag for all the chocolate bars you'll end up buying!

What an incredible experience and well worth the trip from Alaska!…read more We have friends and family that have been traveling to the Flower & Garden Festival for several years and we finally had the opportunity to attend in Feb 2019! We already had some insider information, so it helped us a bit. We stayed a mere two blocks away, bought a ticket package in advance and so glad we did. The week days were definitely better for less crowds and there is soooo much to take in. Booths galore, food, bees, bugs, gardening, decor, classes and the completions; it's was absolutely wonderful and we are looking forward to going back in 2020! Out of all the spectators and vendors, we only found a single person in a foul mood and we quickly moved on from him! It was such a great atmosphere and dare I say difficult to take it all in. It was awesome. It was a great break from the snow, excellent prep for spring and had us craving landscaping and gardening from the moment we arrived. We personally chose to make the first day a 'look not buy' day. We took flyers and business cards back to our room in the evening; taking out time to look things up online and discuss what we loved and couldn't live without. If you're traveling from out of town, I highly recommend traveling with an empty suitcase. We put our smaller carry-on luggage inside our larger cases and came back with boxes, checked baggage and a carry-on each!

The NWFGS is an annual pilgrimage for us. Rain or shine we are there. Actually I don't remember…read moreanything but rain since the show is in the winter. We make a day of it and head to the "Big City" for some flower and garden fun. The exhibits are plentiful as well as the vendors. We always spend a small fortune buying what have you's for the upcoming gardening season. If you have a step counter device you will definitely get your steps in perusing all the booths and garden exhibits. I don't find pricing is any cheaper at the show but the convenience of having everything you can possibly imagine for gardening under one roof makes up for it. We always walk through then go back and start buying as we start the exit process. It's about 3.5 hours in total. We always incorporate a trip to the Public Market because no trip to the 206 is complete without it. It's just a short walk there and back from whatever parking garage you find around Pike and 6th. We always like going there even though it's jammed with people. I get the seafood cocktails from random seafood stands. Good stuff. We always buy some kind of fresh bread or produce to bring home to "the sticks" as well. I have to say this was the first time in recent memory I wasn't forced to walk through a cloud of someone's pot smoke walking down the street. That was nice. All in all our trip to the 206 was pretty good. Hoo-Yahh Seattle!

We attended the Fremont Fair today and had a lovely time. The weather was beautiful and we arrived…read moreearly before the crowds, but made sure to stay for the parade in the afternoon. Between all the amazing vendors, the incredible food options, live music and street performers, the Art Cars and everything else to see and do, the time just flew right by. This is definitely one of the better festivals we have attended. It's dog friendly and family friendly and completely free. Parking is probably the only negative thing and if you don't mind the walk, you should be able to find some parking in a neighboring residential area. We definitely got our 10,000 steps in today and I would absolutely come back again and again.

I have been coming to the Fremont Fair for decades. It is still one of my favorite fairs to visit…read moreevery year. My agenda is likely different from many folks. I don't come on Saturday anymore since everyone is there for the Solstice parade. It is borderline insane for those who drive there and need to find parking. My routine: - I arrive midday on Sunday, typically about 3pm. This gives me three hours at the fair. Many folks are beginning to leave by then. Parking is slightly easier to find even if we need to loop a time or two. - Visit the art cars. This is my absolute favorite at the Fremont Fair. They are insanely fun. My favorite is from 10+ years ago. A sedan is fully covered with Big Mouth Billy Bass with lobsters on top that are synced up to sing Bohemian Rhapsody. I am sure I have a video somewhere. - Stroll the many blocks of the fair, exploring the booths. I go to many fairs. I recognize most vendors going to the same fairs. Fremont Fair is still able to surprise me with new-to-me booths. It is why I return year after year. - Look for free swags. Many community booths give free swags. I look for the cute items that a child might like so I can give those swags to teachers as classroom rewards. - Free food sampling - We enjoy buying new-to-us foods. - Skip the food booths, mostly. Once upon a time, food booths were the source to find unusual eats or to have a small bite. We stop eating from food booths when they became more expensive than going to a restaurant. Sorry, not sorry. We support the local restaurants in the neighborhood instead. We still look, but it is uncommon for us to find something we don't already know. - When all is done, take a stroll along ship canal. It is both peaceful (for us) and chaotic (for the vendors packing up and/or taking down their booths). It is part entertainment seeing the staff direct traffic. For this year's fair, the highlight is once again the art cars with the spaceship car. Inter Milan gave away blue ice cream, while a Raspados Del Sur gave away their excess fruits after the fair ended. It was awesome! Of course, I bought items and enjoyed music from the stages, too.

The Dragon Fest was once a day time summer event, focused on the Chinatown portion. Because of…read moreCOVID this year, it's instead evolved into a day and night C-ID Night Market, representing all of Chinatown-International District - an 8-hour event from 1pm to 9pm. I must say I am impressed with the turnout. While it has always been well attended, we arrived at 8:50pm, expecting to see a mostly closed street fair. Instead, all the booths are still hopping. Shoppers are shopping, and eaters are ordering food and drinks. There may have been such a HUGE turnout that the food lines were very long. When we arrived so late, the vendors were still merrily cooking while some food trucks had "sold out" stickers on selected items. How exciting for them to make up for the losses during COVID closures. As this is a C-ID market, the crowds gravitating towards the booths that sold cute Asian themed items, east Asian to be exact. Food choices were also predominately Asian, including SE Asian. I am not complaining. Hehe. The food truck that caught my attention is YS Street Food Group selling their Sizzling Squid at $12. I also bought a Thai Iced Tea at $4. It's been at least 2 years since I had their well marinating tongue numbing mala squid. It's also very tender. I love it! Folks were buying 3 or more of them! Their Thai iced tea is quite good too, not too sweet and flavorful. Even though we just had a big dinner, we managed to consume more. LOL!

For what could have become a hectic food festive the people who organized the event did a great…read morejob. There were performances every 30 minutes and the groups that performed clearly practiced and put on a show. There were a lot of places to eat and the food walk that offered $3 menu options were awesome. I was so happy to be able to try places like Tai tung and kau kau bbq which were places on my list. There were a lot of vendors and stalls and I was super impressed by the dragon dances! One thing I will say is I think they would do a lot better if they put their informational booth more prominently as a lot of people asked me where to get the maps and food walk pamphlets I was looking at in passing. Overall will be back next year!

Didn't have a good time volunteering. Coordinator/management staff did not make me feel welcome or…read moreopen to volunteering again, no wonder there's staffing issue. One individual was very rude and catty for no reason the entire time. As a first time volunteer, nobody explained anything to me and I had fo figure it all out myself as I went along. Would not recommend volunteering as it's not worth the free con entry.

2025. Worst. Con. Ever. Hours long badge pickup lines (no option to receive by mail). Useless map…read moreand schedule app. Blank reader boards on every conference room made finding everything harder than it had to be. Overall lack of interesting panels and programming compared to past years. (At least I think there was...maybe there was good stuff and we just couldn't find it 'cause the app sucks.)

Came here with friends and had a lot of fun. The husky game and mariners playoff games were both…read moreon, so there was a good sized crowd watching the games. You purchase token coins which you use to redeem for food and drinks at the various vendor stands. If you don't use all your tokens, you can return them later and they will buy them back. The credit card token line tends to be much longer than the cash token line, so I recommend bringing cash if you have it to speed things up. I think their website suggests that you get about $40 worth of tokens per person to have a full experience. This seemed like a lot, and in actuality we ended up spending a lot more. So, it was more expensive than I thought it would be, but some of the food/drink deals are actually pretty good ($6 beer/wine - very healthy pours on the wine, no tax). Highly recommend trying their gyro. The hot entree options also sounded very good and seemed reasonably priced. The problem is you want to try so many things that you're going to need a lot of tokens :) There is live music, dancing, and also a separate section with a market where you can buy some pantry goods and cheese. They offer tours of the church as well. Overall, had a really fun time, ate lunch and dinner here, and left full (but with much lighter pockets :P)

St Demetrios Fest. Is a fun Greek Food event. They have lamb sandwiches, greek fries, pastries,…read morecalamari, casseroles, roasted chicken, soup, falafel, meatballs and rice. Greek coffee. Beer, wine, greek juices. There's kids games too. I bought 3 earrings for $6 total in their rummage sale area. I seem to find something every year at their sale. A convent also sales candles and soaps. There's a huge outdoor tent . The volunteers are really friendly. It will get extremely crowded on Sat snd Sun. Street Parking is limited. They will accept credit cards in exchange for tokens. Bring cash to speed up the lines.

This year's Bumbershoot had a stacked lineup, including but not limited to: Peaches, Chase &…read moreStatus, Blood Orange, Death Cab for Cutie, Atarashi Gakko, De La Soul, TOKiMONSTA, Sextile, Pixel Grip and plenty others. For this year there were also mermaids, magic shows, puppet shows, wrestling, an ant mobile and stands of merch in the Armory. Even better, nearly all food vendors this year were local and included Chicken Supply, Indigo Cow, Spice Walaa, Kottu, Communion and many others. Whether you went one day or both this year, there was always something to do and enjoy, and that's looking past the scorching Seattle sun which we obviously have no control over. Entrance to the venue is near the Armory just after you pass MoPoP. Tickets - whether you got ones with re-entry or not - were strictly enforced by security at the front, as were the security lines, bag checks and the lines for those who want 21+ wristbands to enter any beer gardens and/or purchase alcohol. There aren't many places for shade besides going inside the Armory, and I only saw one water refill station before reaching the Fisher stage; others were in buildings like the Armory. Those buildings are also the same areas where restrooms are located for the duration of the event. The events other than the music made up a huge bulk of this visit for me, with all of them operating at set times over different intervals: - Wrestling was my foodie friend's favorite event outside the music, as we came back here at most three times per day to see performers slam each other and eventually take the fight over to the fountain. - This year was probably the first to feature a mermaid who showed up at set times throughout the day. Concertgoers lined up and got to have photo ops with the performer. - Magic shows by both Taylor Kyle and Travis Kim kept me and my foodie friend thoroughly entertained while we were taking a break from all the concert cacophony. I saw magic performances from both on different days. - I caught an improv puppet show during one of my breaks and had a blast hearing an improv musical on tuxedos and Transformers... wonder how those two got lumped together in one performance. - Unfortunately, I was unable to catch the cat carnival booth as lines for that attraction were too long throughout all of Bumbershoot this year. Events like these aren't complete without food! And the booths this year were lined up around the fountain and Armory, covering a wide variety of cultures: - The Chicken Supply's chicken was one of my favorites, as their "bites" come in huge portions... I could not finish it all in one sitting and had to bring the rest home! - Indigo Cow is a solid choice for their Hokkaido-based soft serve, both in milk and matcha forms which I got as a combo. - I got garlic lamb curry from Kottu, a Sri Lankan cuisine popup and it was one of the best things I've had in a long while! Tons of rich flavor, and a deceptively small portion that actually keeps you more than full! Great spice levels and flavoring, along with tender lamb meat. - I need to give the mango lassi at Spice Walaa's actual location a try since I got the one at their booth here; it's refreshing and too good to pass up! - Jojos from Communion R&B was the awesome kind of spicy. - Thai tea from Thai Street Food was sold out when I got there but their lemonade drinks still satisfied my sweet tooth and general thirst. Of course, this is a music event so the music lineup makes up the largest and most important portion. Crowds were generally benign for the most part except for the highly anticipated ones, and acts take place in any of three stages at set times depending on the schedule. Speakers on each stage blasted crystal-clear sound, though I wish more close-up footage of the musicians would show up on the big screens on the sides of the Fisher stage more often, especially for Blood Orange and Death Cab for Cutie. There's also a fashion area for merch and some fashion shows near Climate Pledge Arena and the KEXP building, where one of the stages is located near. This year's lineup in particular covered a lot of ground in terms of generational relativity; there is something for everyone to listen to regardless of age. I will try coming back for next year's lineup!

It was such an amazing experience! It was my first time, and I'm already excited to go again next…read moreyear!

Equinox Studio had an Open House for Xmas presents. I enjoyed seeing the numerous Artists, Metal…read moreworks, Iron Art for Burning Man. I saw Nobi and The Force perform too. They were at the Summer Open House too. There are more Artists here than in Pioneer Sqr's Artwalk here in Georgetown. They got some crowds but more people go to Pioneer Sqr monthly. There were a few Food Teucks there. They had two Bonfires. But at least it was not rainy hard to watch the Live Entertainment.

For three years in a row I've been checking out Equinox Studios for their massive holiday party…read more While the various studios here are open all throughout the year, the holiday party is a big open house designed at showing off nearly all of the artist's spaces while hosting art fans from around the city. There's live music, wine, beer, food and of course art, in tons of mediums! The studio spaces run from teeny tiny to generous and straight up huge! Some spaces are ideal for woodworking and even metalworks while others (upstairs) are quieter and better suited for painters, sculptors and so on. If I could get back into painting again, I'd definitely want to rent a studio here. Not only does the art community seem really tight knit in Georgetown, it's also just a really peaceful and creative space to hang out.