The Las Olas Wine and Food festival returns this year on April 3, 2020. After raising the price from $75 in 2011 to a high of $125 in 2016; you can now pay just $110 for the right to sample food and wine you wouldn't normally pay for from restaurants you normally wouldn't go to. So many suckers, so little time.
Here's my idea. Go to a restaurant of your choice, have something you want with a couple glasses of wine you like, and donate $50 to the American Lung Association. That way you won't have to wait on line for pizza squares; won't risk dropping your plastic tray while you try to eat standing up, and don't have to worry about the weather ruining the event.
I went in 2011; never again. It was $75 that year, it sucked wind, and the next year they raised the price to $100. For the first time, it didn't sell out. When you realize that the professional charity attending crowd fills up these event regardless of the cause or the cost; that's a pretty big shot across the bow. But they keep doing the same boring thing. The VIP is down to $150, so if you want a real glass and a place to sit it's only another $50.
Review From 2013
April 19, 2013 is the Las Olas Wine and Food Festival, which I lovingly call the Wine and Fool festival, because you'd have to be a damned Fool to pay $100 for this event. Last year, for the second straight year it didn't sell out in advance; maybe the fact that they raised the price for a bad event from $75 to $100 had something to do with it? The delusional people who organize this event don't care. They all have a good time, garnering themselves VIP tickets, which mostly go to event organizers and sponsors. Adding insult in injury; it rained cat and dogs, which is always fun in an outdoor street festival. There's no refunds, so if it rains you'll have to don your rubber gear and hit the street.
There's no event in Fort Lauderdale that illustrates what a bunch of liars we have in the "media" down here; Google this event and you'll see pages of people pushing the event with claims that it's such a great event; I don't know 1 person who has ever attended this event that thinks that it's a very good event. The culture of deception is so unfortunate; never have there been so many faux journalists who are really nothing more than a collection of Facebook friends, patting each other on the back telling each other how great they are.
Review May 2012
The Las Olas Wine and Food "Festival" has raised it's ugly price to $100. this year. The event sucked rocks last year for $75, so it makes perfect sense to raise the price 33% this year. That's right, for $100 PER PERSON you can walk the streets with a little plastic glass and tray and sample wine that nobody would pay for along with leftovers and mushy pulled pork sliders from area restaurants. Or you can spend $225 and they'll give you a real glass, and you can hang out on the green lawn with a bunch of old bats and the event organizers. Or, you can just do something else.
"It's for Charity" they'll tell you. How can you say something bad about a charitable event? Well guess what, charitable events don't have to be a colossal rip-off. At what point did the organizers of these events decide that people would come no matter how much they charge and no matter how bad the event is? Why can't they make a little less and give the restaurants some incentives to serve decent food? From what I've heard, this USED to be a good event, where you went to restaurants and sampled their actual food. Now the restaurants set up chafing dishes in the street with mass produced cheap food and cold pizza squares.
The truth is that the Las Olas Wine and Food Festival is a ruse. It's run by people who believe that the end justifies the means. They have no problem lying to you about what you'll get at the event; because it's "all for charity". They don't care that it has little or no value to the restaurants. They don't care that you don't get a good value for your money. They justify their deception by patting each other on the back for helping out a charity. They are parasites who just want your cash. You can be a willing host, or you can just say "No".
Check out the face on this women as she contemplates a plate of sumptuous ziti:
I'd have no problem paying $100 if it was a good event, but it's not. It's wine I wouldn't normally drink and food I wouldn't normally eat for a price I wouldn't normally pay. And then you have to tote around a cheap wine glass and a plastic tray. It's just lose, lose for all that attend.
No tables unless you go for the extra $50 for VIP tickets. Check out these ladies feasting on sliders and red table wine.
For $100 they could give you a first class meal, a bottle of wine and still pocket a bundle, but this event is just about Greed. Sure it's a good cause. But good charities don't treat their donors like gullible morons. It was $60 before our real estate values tanked, then $75 and now $100. Just how stupid are you anyway?
Check out the gallery. The only people smiling are the ones posing for a photo. Now you can be miserable for an extra $25.
I'm not a big fan of the American Lung association anyway; word is that they spend most of the money on Asthma and Chronic Bronchial conditions and not Lung Cancer. Did you know that you were donating $100. largely to fight Asthma?
So be smart. You want to be charitable? Make a $40 donation to the American Lung Association on their web site and treat yourself to a bone-in Filet at your favorite restaurant with a couple of glasses of wine that you actually like. Or better yet, if you'd rather that your money go to primarily fight lung cancers, you can donate to one of the following:
Lungevity
Lung Cancer Alliance
You can feel good about yourself and have a good meal without being made a fool of by attending events like this. As long as people keep paying, they're not going to make the event any better. Would you keep going to your favorite restaurant if they raised the prices every time you went? What about a restaurant that you didn't like that much? At some point you need to send a message to these organizations to do a better job if they want our money.
You can read my thoughts on last year's event here.
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Photos from the 2010 Las Olas Wine and Food Festival
Photo Gallery
They say that if you "purchased before March 31, you have the option to defer until next year". The shutdown was March 15; who would buy a ticket to an April 3 event after March 31? It makes no sense.