Park Street Festival

I like these festivals and Park Street Festival is a good start. It's one of the first of the summer season. This isn't big as it's about three blocks along Park Street. It has two or three stages with a lot of local bands and some bigger bands who had been popular. There's overpriced beer but there's lots of food trucks. I went both nights of it this year. If you go earlier a lot of the vendors won't be open yet. There's a $5 cover after 7. It allows you into any of the bars. Of course, the bars on Park Street suck ass. Another annoying thing is the cost of beers. They have that stupid ticket system. For $6 you get one ticket. You get 5 tickets for $25. A 16 oz. Blue Moon or a 20 oz. Miller Lite is one ticket. That's crazy. Instead of this have the cocktails. These were two tickets each for a 32 oz. bucket of margarita, rum punch, or vodka punch. I would go again to hang out. It's not the best festival but it's a nice preview of the better ones. There's lots of food trucks with plenty of vegetarian choices so it has something else other than overpriced beer or bands to watch.

In the Arena District, on Front Street, this unique and FREE celebration of downtown nightlife features live performances with plenty of food and drinks for purchase. Front Street is closed off for the event. It's open to all ages, but drinks sold only to those wearing a wrist band. The 2008 musicians included DJ 'M', Reaganomics, Shuckin' Bubba Deluxe, Red Wanting Blue, Acoustic Shu, Jonathan White, IntrospectLove Sick Radio, and the always crowd drawing 17th Floor.If you're not into crowds, this is not for you. If you like to see and be seen, welcome to your summer-time asylum of vain. I went, saw and conquered. It was fun. It was a great summer vacation in the city...with everyone you always see anyway.

My first Park Street Festival was in 2009, because a friend of the boy's and mine was in town and we needed to entertain him. The general Park Street area is rarely a first choice of mine, so a festival of people in and in front of Park Street bars didn't necessarily strike me as "fun."Well, it was very crowded on the streets, but it was unexpectedly a bit fun! The three of us picked up our over-priced festival beers and hung to the side of one of the stages to chat and watch some live acts... and people. Oh the people watching. Especially the people picketing Park Street Fest as an abomination to God... bless them.We didn't actually go IN any of the bars, just enjoyed the festivities on the street. An observation: there were a ton of volunteers and police officers everywhere, and considering the whole event only spans a couple blocks, that was a mark of a well-executed festival. Oh, and the various bands playing were a-ok.Overall, not a personal favorite Columbus festival, but I'm sure I'll stop down for a few hours again this year.

Spent June 12 at Park Street Fest this year, and enjoyed the event as much or more so than I did last year.Bands at PSF this year: Smash Mouth, Saving Jane, Naked Karate Girls, Dot Dot Dot, Bourbon Kings, Andy Shaw Band, World Famous Weedeaters, Jonathon White, DJ N.A.T.E. and DJ Skys, Lovesick Radio, Lt. Dan's New Legs, Of Human, Brave Youngster, DJ Matt Sexton, The 17th Floor, The White Tie Affair, Red Wanting Blue, Cartel and DJ Bombay. Food stands: BBQ and Schmidt's. Beer: Coor's Light, Miller Lite, Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy and Blue Moon. The crowd wasn't too bad b/c the weather was a bit rainy, but, just like last year, there remained a very good number of volunteers and police officers. I had 5 stars of fun at PSF this year, but here's why I'm leaving the event at 4 stars:- Admission buttons were $5. It was free to get in last year. - Last year the beers appeared to be 20 oz., this year they were ADVERTISED as 16 oz., but served in 12 oz. cups. 16 oz. bottles were available, however. I may have even knocked the event down to 3 stars for these reasons, but I'm leaving it at 4 because the bars didn't charge a cover until midnight, whereas last year they started charging earlier on.

Now that the City of Columbus is allowing food trucks on the streets in downtown, the Park Street Festival this year is full of food trucks. If you've been to the Columbus Food Truck Festival but was bitterly disappointed by the crazy long lines, this is the place to go to satisfy your food truck curiosity.

We had fun, but I didn't think it was anything special. Not worthy of 5 Stars. It is something easy and Free to do on a nice weekend.It's about 3 blocks long and has about three or four (can't remember) Stages of Live Music throughout the evening. The only Band I cared about was the Reaganomics, who are always fun to listen to (Best 80's Band in Columbus)!The rest of the festival consists of food trucks and drink tents. Since it's a festival, you obviously better bring cash if you intend to drink because you have to get the drink tickets in order to get the drinks.Anyway, as I said it's only about 3 blocks long, so you can walk down and back and see everything, so it's definitely not an all night festival to hang out with friends. It seems the intentions are to go there and then get everyone to go to the bars around the area afterwards for more drinking (Brothers, Cantina, Gaswerks, Social, etc.).I've seen it, I've experienced it. I probably won't attend again.

Arrived at 7pm with our 13 year old niece and were told we could not enter due to a 21 and over age restriction. Now I am out my $10 for parking. Nowhere was this advertised or mentioned on the website. What a poorly organized way to conduct business. Will boycott this festival.

So very disappointed. This was our third year going and it was the worst by far! So few vendors and at 1pm, when we wanted lunch, many were not even open. This was a huge let down. This will be our last time for it.

The only real bad thing about Park Street Festival is that...it's on Park Street... I'm not a fan of most of the bars on Park Street, so that didn't get me pumped to go, but I ended up having a great time listening to all the bands, enjoying some beer(even overpriced beer), and eating good street food. It was really crowded, which was to be expected, but the people who attended were cool and we ran into several friends of ours. Would I go back next year? Sure. But it's not something I will be counting down the days for. It was a nice little kick off to the summer festival/people watching season, though.