Sun City Bacon Festival

What a difference a year makes! The 2016 Sun City Bacon Festival really improved over 2015's, kudos to the organizers, and frankly to me, I deserve kudos for my honest and helpful review, so give me some darn kudos! (I suppose Tanya also deserves some amount of kudos, but I don't plan on sharing mine, GET YOUR OWN KUDOS!) Kudo politics aside, this year's festival just felt way better planned, there were more local restaurants participating with a plethora of creative bacony treats, and there didn't seem to be shortages like last year. The lines were way better managed, I think that using the piggybucks tokens really helped expedite transactions, plus we didn't experience the cash only nightmare of 2015. My favorites this year were the Bacon-wrapped wings from Crave, and the Maple Bacon Bread Pudding from Ode Brewery (that one was so good it actually did run out), plus Cabo Joe's 3 little piggies came back from last year, yum! Brass Monkey's bacon grilled cheese was not too shabby either. They also moved the stage which helped keep the noise from overwhelming you while you explore the festival, and they had more merch available, I even got a sweet piggy nose! I'm really glad that the festival improved, I am pro-Bacon and I'm not ashamed to admit it, but hopefully the organizers will not rest in their laurels and make it even better in 2017, and I'll be here ready to claim my rightful share of kudos.

I'm torn with this one. I LOVE seeing new (or borrowed) ideas in El Paso and Baconfest was a great one, but I HATE seeing poor, rushed execution. If this does truly become an annual event I'd love to see a whole lot more thought go into Baconfest and what it actually is. I'm glad I went because I do enjoy supporting events like this and showing that there is an interest for such an event in the area. Next year I would like to see a whole lot more.One of the biggest issues I had with this event was the vagueness. There was no website set up for Baconfest... sure they posted an article about it on the KLAQ website, but there was really no where for anyone to really find answers to some pretty important questions (i.e. What time is this event over?). They had a Facebook event page set up, but not a Facebook page and again it didn't answer any real questions people might have. The markup basically said: The event starts at 11 AM, there will be bacon, there will be a costume contest, and there will be a hog calling contest. It didn't tell you what time the event was over, if you could bring pets (it turned out you couldn't, but since that wasn't blatantly apparent I did see many dogs at the event), how do you enter the contests, what time are the contests at, who's bringing the bacon, what different variations of bacon will there be, what other vendors will be at the event, and what kind of just-for-fun things will be at this event? Finishing this review would just be easiest by answering those questions... so here goes.What time is the event over?5 PM. There were even vendors that were asking patrons what time the event was over. Literally no one knew.Can you bring pets?They said 'no', but they didn't have anyone manning any of the access points or security for that matter so do as you please. I regret not bringing my little Charlie because she truly believes bacon is LIFE.How do you enter the contests?This still isn't incredibly clear to me, but it had to be done at the event (yup, there was no online form to sign up anywhere). I'm actually assuming it was either at the stage or at the Baconfest tent selling shirts.What time are the contests?Whenever they call them over the speakers on the stage so stay close to the stage if you're trying to enter something. The contests I saw only had about four people in them so chances of winning are high!Who's bringing the bacon?They literally never released a complete list of vendors. The only thing they listed were the restaurants that actually fell inside the bounds of the event. No duh! They had "VIP" available at The Garden that included three different bacon starters and two drinks (very vague though... what kind of bacon starters and drinks?). There were actually quite a few foodtrucks at the event like Sweet Addiction, Crave, and Sloppy Seconds that received absolutely no recognition or promotion prior to the event.What different variations of bacon will there be?Nope, they never even told you if Crave was just making regular bacon or bacon wrapped shrimp. They were making bacon wrapped shrimp (which was my favorite). There was also chocolate covered bacon (two different varieties... the price on one was a little high though), bacon sugar cookies, pork belly hush puppies, caramel bacon cashew marshmallow praline, waffle bacon, bacon pizza, bacon sushi, BLT sushi rolls, pork belly on a stick and more.What other vendors will there be?Not many unfortunately and the vendors that didn't have a bacon product didn't even do anything bacon related. Are you kidding me?! Can I get some bacon costumes or something? There was one vendor selling salsa. They were also giving samples, they could've easily served their salsa samples on top of a small slice of bacon. There was a lady selling body wraps... we're at Baconfest, we don't care about our figure right now. I think at most there was six other vendors, but they didn't even seem that involved in the event.What kind of just-for-fun things will be at the event?Other than the free photobooth, nothing. Literally, nothing. Sadly it was just a lot of shuffling from one long line to the next. I would've liked to see some game booths, a jumping balloon for kids, a bacon mascot that people would've tried to take pictures with... anything that could've broken up the lines a little bit and enticed me to stay after having my fill of bacon related products. It just felt like if you weren't eating bacon, it was time to go.Again, I'll go next year... I would just like to see more organization, not something that someone slapped together. There really is no excuse. It may have been executed in a month, but it could've been done better and honestly, the rush to do it in a month was their own... the El Paso community was not demanding this event be done NOW so the sloppiness falls on the heads of the event organizers.