The experience got better and better as the nite went on. We arrived around 8, and was delayed by poor management. Bottleneck problem at the parking lot and will call box. They should have had 2-3 people working the parking lot and collect payment. I prepaid my parking and had to wait in line for all the other drivers. Same with Will Call box.. had to wait for queue jumpers..ugh..rude people Upon entrance, we were first greeted by the arts and craft vendors. It was a huge letdown to just see these vendors, until I discovered the area next to the vendors. Now it got much more interesting.. yeah, there were corporate vendor stands, but they also had some of the food trucks there and large open area with picnic tables and lights strung up. Quite festive, .. think OctoberFest. We got us a few things and enjoyed out dinner under the stars and lights. The food is overpriced, but that is to be expected at any festival. We eventually found the main stage and enjoyed a few performances. It was windy out and the balloon show was delayed. We left when it was too cold to be outside. Its a lively festival and lots of folks were dressed up. Very kid friendly and tons of security folks around to prevent the drunk college kids. A well managed festival once you get inside. Pro tip : Wear Layers to stay warm. If you have kids, come earlier to hit up the stand and grab swag and candy. read more

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Me and my family had a great time attending Owl-o-ween. Reading past reviews made us nervous but it was not that bad since we arrived at 7pm. Purchased our ticket on Groupon(big money saver). Pros: Because of past reviews on parking issues, we paid for parking upon arrival and did the walk up for $15. The lines to get in to the parking lot were long but moved pretty quickly. The walk to the field was also not bad. Upon arrival were a bunch of hot air ballowns. The event was separated into several sections. The first field had a couple of hot airballowns with different vendor stalls. The kids recieved a gift bag at the entrance and were able to trick or treat to each booth and airballoon. The treats were pretty big so we were pleased. We didn't wear costumes but many people and kids did. We saw many creative costumes around the area and they also featured a stage cat walk for everyone who bought a costume. Watching the kids were amazing. 3 different stages with musical performances. To ride the hot air balloons were $15 and the line gets long. Thatnshould be the first thing to do once you get there, its pretty awesome. They also had pumpkins near the kids stage to take home and a silent music party which i found interesting. Con: My only argument would be the food. Many food stalls don't provide straws for drinks, so it wasn't the greatest experience with my 4 year old and their were many fried options, than healthy ones, so not really kid friendly when it comes to food. read more

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I'm not a huge fan of Halloween, but I am of hot air balloons. I thought this would be a good local way to see some balloons and maybe try a tethered ride for the night. Traffic around the school wasn't nearly as bad as I thought. We were able to find a good spot by the garage and the KSU shuttles were on a constant loop. There was no waiting at all for the shuttles and the drivers and human arrows were great. It was fun seeing people dressed up for Halloween and the little ones seemed excited. although, I'm not sure I would say this is the place to be for small children. Maybe it's more child friendly during the day, but we were there at night and it was a party atmosphere. Entry was easy enough and they provided detailed maps for everyone. The upper level had tons of photo areas for everyone. Of course, I jumped into the balloon basket to make all my social media friends think I was on a real balloon ride. After that, I immediately started looking for the balloon area and was soon dissappointed to find out the balloons were gone. It was too windy and they had to pack up for the night... :(. That was really my main reason for coming. Oh well, the next best thing is food so we headed off to the food trucks. Also, a little alcohol wouldn't hurt either. Now, there are a few stages with music, costume contests, and other things. Honestly, not much of that interested me. On the football field, several balloon operators were lighting up the place when they would pulse their burners for a few minutes. It was cool to see those flames, but I still missed the actual balloons. After eating my sorrows away in funnel cake, I saw how excited people were and realized that this was a pretty cool event. I'll come back next year, if it's not too windy. :) read more

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Wast of miles, money and time. I went to this year's festival, 1 balloon on air only. They blamed on the weather, but the weather was fine, no wind, rain or anything out of normal. I complain at the ticket box office trying to get my money back, no luck. Don't waste your time or money, check other hot air balloon festivals in GA instead. read more

Hot air balloons were being put up by 7:30. Very disappointing when that's the main reason you came to it. It was pricey and really had too many things going on for a short period of time. The lighting for the arts & crafts was not good and you had to watch for the covers over the electrical lines, it would have been easy to trip on. There were long lines for everything. The people working the event were nice and it was clean. I think it's a good idea just too many things and too many people. All in all just not a good value for the money. read more

Seems like a awesome event but why not have better instructions with driving and directing traffic? We have sat in traffic for one hour and now just driving around looking for our lot that we paid for and cannot find. Seriously, get it together and I want a refund! read more

Listed as one of the "18 Can't Miss Fall Events for Family Fun" on Explore Georgia's website...I may have to disagree with them. I love the concept but the execution still needs work. Children and those that are children at heart are able to go "trick-or-treating" at different booths (vendors, marketplace and at the balloons). There were tethered balloon rides and we were disappointed that we didn't see any take off. The food choices were very limited and overpriced. $4 for a small slice of skinny pizza? No thank you. When I saw the slice I got out of line. There was a bbq stall, loaded baked potato stall, and a chicken finger stall. I was honestly so discouraged by the pricing of the pizza that I didn't really look at the others. We left hungry. In addition, as we were leaving there was some performer on stage singing way out of tune...couldn't get away fast enough to save our ears. We got some pictures with the hot air balloons and some candy, so not a total flop. It would definitely be better if our baby was older and was able to enjoy the trick-or-treating part. Honestly though, it's not worth the $20/person. Luckily we got our tickets from my mom who got hers from Groupon. read more

Ok my 2 rating is based on a few simple observations. The hot air balloons were very cool and being surrounded by so many was a first for my family. We arrived when gates opened and had prepaid to park and even then had to walk a bit to get in which wasn't easy for my mother in. We had a Groupon and only waited about 5 minutes to redeem for our tickets because again we arrived right at 6 pm. When we walked in there was no direction, no signs, we found maps and started making our way. There was a huge area with seating and some beer sales, why weren't the food trucks there? Instead you had to keep going,and enter the field where volunteers were trying to tie up balloons while people tried to walk. It was potentially very dangerous. I actually saw a woman lift her stroller over a wire as 2 volunteers attempted to secure a balloon over the walking path. All of the food tents and trucks were right there. There weren't that many food options. There were tons of vendor tents for your usual suspects, Avon, Tupperware, scentsy candles, windows and doors etc....the kids went around and trick or treated at the balloons and some tents and we discovered another field with balloons. We determined those were the balloons you could ride in. The line was wrapped around the field. Um no thanks. We left after 2 hours and the traffic was horrible. People couldn't find parking, the lines of people trying to get in with tickets crossed the street and went into the parking lot. It was nuts. I think we paid entry fees and service fees for our kids to trick or treat and see a balloon inflate. It was ok but I won't go again. read more

Thought we would give it a try and not sure what to expect. We ate dinner before we went so as not to have to pay for over priced food. We parked away and walked about 1/3 mile past all the traffic going to the event. Good thing based on previous reviews. Had pre-purchased tickets and went it through back entrance off Big Shanty road, no lines. Remember, we had no expectations. Once we were in the event we realized it consisted a dozen or so hot air balloons, many vendor tents pedaling their services or products. There were food trucks and tents with VERY long lines, glad we ate before we went. Bouncy houses that my kids were to big to jump on. A really long line to get into the balloon ride section. A few shows of people or groups providing entertainment. Many arts and crafts tents selling their offerings. We stayed for two hours and then left. Now we can say we did it and absolutely won't be back. The balloons at night all lit up are cool but how long can you ooh and aahh about that. Crowds were as others have posted, huge. If your going tonight cause you already bought tickets hope this post helps to prepare you. read more

It was a really cool event with hot air balloons, so many booths, vendors, activities, etc but there weren't enough people working so most of the time we just stood in lines. The lines ran to be about 1 hour plus for tickets (and we got there a little after 6). Finding parking was fine but paying and sitting through the traffic took about 40 minutes too. Once we were inside we wanted to take a ride on the tethered hot air balloons which took - no joke - 3 hours for a 5 minute ride on the hot air balloon. On top of that there were several arguments that broke out in the line since people were cutting/the line was disoriented from both sides since there weren't enough volunteers to supervise traffic flow. They ran out of food at some point too. I would have rather gone today (Saturday) than Friday since it's going to be open longer/none of the Groupon-ers will be there. It's a fun event but you're going to have to be ready for the lines and disorganization. read more

Owl-O-Ween - Festivals Near Me - Kennesaw, Georgia

The only reason I am giving three stars is due to the lack of organization and apparent overselling of tickets. I purchased a voucher for two adults through Groupon. For Friday evening (10/23), the event started at 6:00P.M., we didn't arrive to the event till around 7:15P.M., but didn't even manage to get in till around 9:00P.M. due to the insane traffic, unorganized parking, shuttle buses, and...an additional line to get tickets even though it was already purchased through Groupon. Overall, parking was a mess because people that even prepaid for parking couldn't redeem their purchase. Flow of traffic was so terrible because everyone was confused about parking that it was a waste of time! Positive aspects: 1. We did get to ride in a hot air balloon after hours of waiting until the event closed. We didn't leave until 1:00A.M. (also waiting for a shuttle since it was the LAST shuttle of the night) to take us back to the parking lot. 2. German beer,...yum :) 3. Plenty of food options (though lines were so long we didn't wait). We wanted the hot air balloon ride more :D Negative aspects: If it was better organized (oversell??) that made parking, redeeming tickets easier, it would have been a LOT smoother! However, if you've never been to this event, I do suggest you go! And if you have little ones...please..please...please...watch out for them ;) Heard quite a few announcements for missing kids. Adults...really?!? I'll get off my soap box now :) Enjoy the beautiful hot air balloons! read more

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3rd time was not the charm. To start we purchased tickets from Groupon. Good price but you could not buy parking pass from them, and you could not just buy a parking pass from KSU. You had to buy your tickets from them to purchased the parking passes. You could pay $10 to park in the park and ride area or in a old Business that is now closed. I was not about to pay KSU to park in public areas. I could see if it was there area or even part of the school but none of it was. We even asked the KSU police where the free parking was and he said there was none. Even the parking lots on campus was $10 but they did have the school Shuttle bus bring people back and forth. Groupon tickets had to be redeemed in a second ticket line. Even if you printed them. Once inside the walkways were shoulder to shoulder with people mostly drunk college kids. The areas were were divided into different sections: kids, German Hofbrau, stadium, balloon rides. Lots of things for the kids to do and not have KSU nickel n dime you to death in this area. A lot of hot air balloons for the kids to trick-or-treat around. The German area was filled with drunk college kids Standing around tables with no chairs so we decided to eat in the stadium area. This area had more balloons and food trucks and food venders but more was needed for the amount of people that were there. We waited in line for 45 minutes for corndogs. Last area was the balloon rides for $10. The balloons were on the cable and you would go up 20 to 30 feet and then come back down and that was your $10 ride. Each area had some kind of music playing at full volume so it all sounded like one big noise. First year was the best, it has only gone very much down hill from there. It has turned into a drunk party for KSU. We will not return again! read more

The way the event is promoted you think you are going to walk into a field full of blown up hot air balloons. Wrong! They blow them up one by one and have about 1-3 balloons up for exhibition. There are a lot of food stands (corn dogs, funnel cakes, noodles and much more). There are live bands and children performing on stage/ run way modeling also. The overall festival is not too big maybe less than a mile total. Somewhat disappointing compared to the way it is promoted. Parking was a hassle as most of the attendants didn't know what parking lot was where. We purchased premium parking and it took us a good bit to find it. It was lacking signs to guide people to parking and to the event in general. read more

If you have kids- especially a strollers- avoid this event! Way too many attendees. You will spend all your time barely moving around the thousands of other people and you will wait in long line for anything- a pretzel, a beverage, a jumpy house slide, etc. Not enjoyable! read more

Traveling from LA family suggested we go to get the kids out of the house for some pre Halloween fun. Boy we're we disappointed, this wasBadly managed event. Traffic bottlenecks, congested lines for tickets and entry. Extremely unorganized chaos we wasted $80 only to have the hot air balloons taken down by the time we made it in. The food was loaded with grease and they weren't giving out candy they passed out bags of pork rinds and little bite muffins to the kids. Just A big crowded waste of an event. Hopefully they can do better for someone else but we will not be back. read more

parking: we got there about 5:15pm because I was advised to get there at least an hour before opening to get a good space. there is no advising where you can park but 101 signs telling you where you can't park! finally we found a place where we could park which wasn't a long walk but it wasn't a short one either. it was $15... a crying shame and gouging for no damn reason. they are going to make money man. admission: if you didn't do the little coloring sheet and turn it on time you get screwed! I couldve sworn the coloring sheet said you could bring it with you and get free admission for a child per each adult. whatever... I'm not going to squabble when I already spent $15 on parking. adults are $16 children are $9. a fucking rip off to charge anything for children under 8 years old because all they want to do is run around. my children didn't take advantage of any of the "kiddie activities" because the lines were ridiculously long. vip that comes with a parking pass and catered food is $75 for adults and $51 for children. didn't see many people doing that. what pissed me off the most is we called this afternoon to see if they were going to have the balloons tonight due to the strong winds. the lady told us yes, well guess what? NO HOT AIR BALLOONS TONIGHT FOLKS! why?! BECAUSE OF THE WIND!!!! #snorts# so $51 admission for 2 adults and 2 children to basically walk around and get candy 0_o the whole damn reason we came was to get on the hot air balloons!! now on the jumbo tron it stated people who came today can use their tickets tomorrow 10/21/16. idk if will/or can come back when I made time to do this activity TODAY!!! #rollseyes# food: typical corn dogs, funnel cakes, lemonade, yaddah ya. they did have freakin incan. they serve empanadas. = boring. they were 2/$10 totally not worth it. but at least they weren't greasy. they had a place selling shrimp po boys w/fries $15. hamburgers, cheese steaks, mellow mushroom (the line was ridiculous!), and carrabbas. smh $5 for chicken o brien that was just a chicken breast!! $4 for a saucer full of ravioli. I knew we shouldve stopped at wendys before we came. I spent $19 on food and came home and prepared dinner vs spending $6 at wendys and coming home and preparing dinner. WHAT A WASTE!! I will say the funnel cake was the best I've ever had. it wasn't greasy, it had the taste of a cake donut, and it was fluffy. they have vendors selling popcorn, candy apples, boiled peanuts, and soft drinks. the lines were too damn long, no crowd control what so ever. I was happy to see the nutty Bavarian and that saved me from having to order the nuts online. vendors: there are vendors there selling all sorts of things from oils and oil defusers (i won their little raffle), bath salts/bombs, paintings on the spot, jewelery for $5, wrap dresses that you could wrap fifty million ways, hats, those diet flat belly teas (which are really a damn laxative no weight loss smh), and other misc stuff that falls along those lines. children activities/hot air balloons: tonight was a bust and the balloons didn't fly, thanks a lot mother nature! the children's activities were bounce houses, a death drop, and bouncy slides. the lines were too damn long so we didn't do any of that. shows: we did see some live shows and that was pretty cool. we saw some african american group that was singing r&b/funk/neo soul, they were so good they moved my 6 year old to dance lol then they had the contortionist show, it was "flaming" and it will "give you life, huntee!!" there was a fierce diva voguing with a violin, so if you aren't about that life you will have no idea of what I speak of. the m.c. of that event; "miss thang" make up was fabulously avant garde, as a make up artist I could say WERQ fish!! overall there are some kinks owl o ween needs to work out. 1. get some better food trucks in there 2. have some sort of crowd control. all it takes is a minor scare and people could've easily been trampled depending where you were. 3. START ON BLOODY TIME!! you didn't want to fly the balloons because of the wind but didn't mind having us patrons stand in it an additional 15 minutes while you got your act together. 4. have some heating stations or heat lamps 5. more lighting in the food area. 6. more organization but that falls under crowd control. 7. all the vendors need to be giving out candy, about 10 didnt have any and 3-4 were giving out 1 piece of candy. smh how cheap! overall the kids trick or treating was cool if you X out adults shoving little kids to get candy. yes grown muthafuckas (because that's what their rude asses are) were shoving kids to get candy! I was so over the crowd. we stayed about 2.5 hours and I was ready to go once I saw the food situation which was at the1.5 hours point. would we come back next year? yes, but never again at full walk up price! the brood enjoyed it so I supposed it was all worth the aggravation. read more

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I definitely want a refund. Half the performers showed up and half-assed it in the rain. The kids area was tiny. There was no coffee. I spent $75 for my family to get rained on while most of the people performing were just not into it. No hot air balloons due to rain and wind (which is why we went). Vendors mostly tried to close up early except for a few choice decent people. We spent a total of 3 hours in the car to get to the event. The event host is trying to just hand out vouchers for next year, but we have zero interest in going again. I'm going to attempt to get my money back and spend it elsewhere next Halloween weekend. Incredibly disappointed, and I was really excited for it. read more

We gave up and went elsewhere. The website contained little information about how the parking worked - especially that you needed a parking pass for most of the lots. The shuttle drop zone was shown on the map but it didn't say where pickups were or how often they would run. We ended up seeing at least a dozen big busses, but the largest # of folks inside was maybe 6 with hundreds of people walking from all directions. The lots were labeled by color on the map and designated by flags at the entrance - not the best option when it is dark & very hard to actually see the colors (like purple). One of the lots, close to the field had a flag, so we pulled into it. Saw ~20 spots open but was told we couldn't park there. Asked if we needed a pass, the guy shrugged. Asked where we were supposed to go. The response was, ask the guy at the entrance - there wasn't one. Finally found a person in a festival vest, and he not only told us the wrong direction, he named a street that didn't exist. I heard from a friend that the lines to get in were so long, mislabeled and confusing that they, too, gave up & went elsewhere. If they have it again next year, unless we can actually take a balloon to it, I'm staying away. 90 mins of aimless driving is enough waste for one lifetime. read more

The traffic around the venue was bumper to bumper. There was a major bottleneck for getting into the walkable parking lot. Instead of checking for parking admission at the entrance of the lot, they made the cars drive half way around the lot to pay for parking. It took us 45 min. to drive from the entrance of the parking lot to our parking space. We finally made it to the venue around 8 pm, but the hot air balloons were all packed up by 9:30 pm. They did not give out maps and / or programs of the events, so we could not plan our visit efficiently. I do not recommend that you spend money to attend this event. It's too pricey for the little that you get to enjoy. read more

This is an awesome Fall event! Priced right, and plenty of parking. Recommend that you pre-purchase tickets and parking. Many of our friends got the $5 parking shuttle lots and were happy. We got the VIP lot, and it was right across the street with great access. Food was priced pretty normal for a festival, with lots of great options. The balloons were fantastic, kids area was all free, with lots to see and do, including the free inflatables, free arts & crafts, free photo ops, and free silent disco. Not sure what people expect, but we got a promo coloring sheet at Zaxby's and the kids got in Free with an advance paid adult ticket. Check out all the stages, as there are some pretty cool acts! We'll be back, and will bring friends and neighbors next year. read more

Parking was horrendous. I parked in the purple lot a couple of miles from the festival and had to wait 30 minutes for a shuttle. I knew of people who pre-purchased parking passes and were denied access to their lots. The lines were unbearable due to the extreme overselling of tickets. The booths reminded me of a work convention. Boost mobile, Alpharetta dentistry, AT&T, etc. Why would I got to a festival to talk to sales guys and spin a wheel to win a toothbrush? The 4 food trucks sold out of everything and had 100+ person lines...again ticket overselling. I ended up leaving after 45 minutes even though it took well over an hour to commute here when you include the insane traffic and shuttle bus. Can't say I spoke with anyone who had a differing opinion... read more

Cool event...but sell 1000+ groupons and only have 3 ppl working tents for tickets...

After reading reviews from the Groupon night, we were very concerned about going Sat night. I am so glad to say to say that Sat night was great! We pre-paid online for shuttle parking when we bought our tickets which was $10. The website shows a map of where the parking garage was located and we had no problems with traffic! We got there a little after 6pm. While the event was crowded it was to be expected. The hot air balloons went up around 7pm and they were beautiful. People working the event were very nice! Saw some great shows and my kids came home with a big bag of treats! We had a great time! read more

This event was very disorganized and chaotic with no unified purpose. Effectively, my friends and I paid $20 each to just stand in lines and be herded with the crowds. The weather was perfect but hot air balloons were put up by the time we entered the gate at 8:00 p.m. Going to a free community festival would provide a better environment without the gate fee! read more

This was literally one of the worst events I've ever been to. It was completely unorganized, and every single vendor, booth, and checkpoint seemed entirely overwhelmed by the large number of attendees. We purchased tickets and a parking pass in advance, but that didn't help at all. We sat in traffic for more than two hours just to get to the Gold lot. This wasn't traffic getting to the event; this was arriving at the event and THEN sitting for two hours. The "organizers" had roads closed and detours that completely changed routes listed on the website and parking pass, and basically forced people to drive in a huge circle to access the lot. The only positive is that because we purchased our tickets online in advance, we walked right in at checkin and got to bypass the line of hundreds snaking down from the entrance to one of the parking lots. Once inside, it only got worse. People staffing the "help" booths were absolutely unhelpful, and the lines for food were ridiculous. We had our three year old with us and we spent so much time waiting in line for a freaking grilled cheese, that we had just enough time to eat and then head back to the parking lot and head home. While the wait for food sucked, we were very fortunate that we didn't experience what some people did, which was waiting in line forever and then only to be told that the vendor had RUN OUT OF FOOD. So those poor people had to go into another line to wait AGAIN for 20-30 minutes for food. I don't know what went wrong tonight, or if this was typical, but it was an absolute disaster. I'm usually a very understanding person when it comes to things like this--stuff happens and you just sort of deal with it. But, this was a disaster by anyone's standards. Do yourself a favor and avoid this event. Save yourself the frustration that we experienced tonight. The idea is awesome (hot air balloons, cool booths, good food, and lots of fun costumes), but the execution was piss-poor. And to the event "coordinators" and "organizers", get your stuff together and plan for the appropriate amount of people. read more

While I enjoyed the time with my friends, and the German food was great, the traffic, parking and lines to get in were terrible. This is the third year so the organizers should have been much better prepared. There were NO signs to tell drivers where to go to get to the various parking lots - there were policemen on every corner but not helping direct the traffic; once we finally got to the parking lots, there were no spaces left and then once inside, the Groupon lines were horrific. It took 1 1/2 hours to get in between traffic, parking and waiting in line. I think it is a great idea and under a different larger venue, I would have enjoyed it much more. Bottom line is that KSU is too small to be able to handle such an event. read more

Beware! They over sell tickets leaving you to spend all your time in very very long lines for food and beer. And forget about taking a ride in a ballon because the line is over 2 hours long. By far the WORST event I've ever been to. read more