Downtown Summerfest

Great fun for the family with a lot of activities! Parking is hard to find so be prepared to hoof it. The lines for food are long and so is the wait after you place your order. But it is worth it for handcrafted deliciousness! CABQ does a great job of keeping the area clean despite a hoard of people and pets. Kudos to the hardworking staffers!This year the beer garden was complete with light up drinks that looked phenomenal! My dog was tired out so I didn't get to taste but it looked so cool!

Kind of a flop because I expected so much more. While I thank the City of Albuquerque for organizing a fun, free, family-friendly event, I was expecting far more arts and crafts as well was way more food trucks. Summerfest has the space and capacity to hold more merchants for people looking to shop and I must have seen a dozen, maybe less. The entertainment was nice, but it was certainly a lost opportunity. Albuquerque deserves more.

Another Summerfest event, this one had quite the showing of people. That probably had a lot to do with the headliner, Ozomatli, who is a great band out of LA. During their performance, people packed in close to the stage and, mostly, showed a lot of enthusiasm and energy. The other musical performers were good as well and offered a good mix of music, from 70s and 80s hits to ranchero music and New Mexican music. I appreciated this quite a bit as one lament of mine from the NH Summerfest was the lack of diversity in the music. Overall, I'd say the music was great and really made the event enjoyable, even before Ozomatli rocked the place. Unfortunately, other aspects of the event did not quite do justice to the music. Just as at the NH Summerfest a number of breweries came out to keep the masses cups filled, they found themselves downtown for this event. And just like at NH Summerfest, drinkers were corraled into an area and prevented from moving about the event. Worse than at NH Summerfest, the so-called beer garden they'd created was far from the stage and obstructed by a large structure. This was a MAJOR bummer. This was a bit tempered, however, by the presence of La Cumbre (and Il Vicino and Bosque Brewing). Also, the food situation was a disaster. My wife and a friend stood in line for over an hour trying to get food, and when they finally got the food, we'd all been starving so long as to no longer be hungry. Add to this that the barbecue, from Bodacious I believe, was bad and this was again, a MAJOR disappointment. I ordered a brisket sandwich and got a healthy serving of brisket in a hot dog bun (?). The bun was dry as all hell and added nothing to the sandwich, the brisket too was dry and as Chris from Yelp pointed out, "was a step away from beef jerky." And the cole slaw that would have and should have added some flavor and moisture to the sandwich was so sparse as to essentially not be there. Interestingly, in retrospect it was telling to us that none of the major food trucks was in attendance as this foreshadowed the poor food situation. In the end, I appreciate the clown/circus act that must have been nice for kids, as well as the kids' play area complete with the bouncing castle. I appreciated the great FREE show from Ozomatli. It was a fun event. This is why I give three stars despite some significant complaints.

A small, and packed summer fest. I went to see Sheila E. As Clayton said, the set up was awkward. They have this building like tower that blocks many of the views of the stage. Also people set up lawn chairs so the whole area became almost impossible to navigate. The fellows I was with, and I became trapped in this mess and were trying to reverse direction, but people kept pouring in, and the people who thought they were at the beach were all agitated. I would say for future summerfests tell people they can't use lawn chairs unless they are old or handicapped. Also the whole front area of the stage was blocked off most likely fort VIP's. This was wicked lame. Spots where you could actually see the free show were in short supply. So then we tried to get the beer garden. The front side was a traffic jam, and someone had a medical emergency. The medics were having a hard time with getting through the crowd.Earlier on I had a beer at Anodyne, which was manageably busy. I had tried to have a beer at Sister the bar, but they wanted 13$ for some show, that looked like it was not starting for a while. It was empty in there, you would think they would want to make a quick few dollars- but no. Went to the beer garden while Sheila E was playing, could barely see the stage. The whole thing was poorly logistically set up. Also almost no food venders were there. I was glad my friends dragged me to the Standard Diner before hand. I suggest you eat before you go.The last lame event was I exited the beer garden to use the bathroom, and they would not let me back in. You would think they would give you a heads up that they were getting ready to shut her down- but they did not. The show had another 20 minutes to go and I was separated from the cool cats I was hanging out with. The crowd for the event was mostly low brow. If it wasn't for the beer garden and free music there would be no saving graces. Really Albuquerque - is that the best you can do? Nob Hill Summer fest was much better.