Indiana Peony Festival

Great event. So many beautiful things to see. It needs spread out over more city blocks. It felt like 100,000 people were crammed in four city blocks. You could not walk, move or even visit vendors tents. Vendors were sold out of many things by noon. It was smothering overstimulating crowd and I usually love festivals. I go to huge festivals in Cincy and they spread out over more city blocks to disperse crowd. Great event. Sell tickets, spread it out....do something to thin the chaos. We visited the downtown shops and boutiques and that was good. It was so crowded that we actually opted to drive over to Pendleton and just go out to eat there and go visit boutiques in downtown Pendleton.

This was my first time attending the Indiana Peony Festival, and I was really looking forward to this event! Noblesville has a wonderful downtown, with tons of local shops and restaurants. However, they have a lot of road construction that was really inconvenient with the festival and made some areas difficult to walk through. We arrived early and were able to park, but the parking situation looked brutal for the folks that showed up later in the day. We got to the festival when it opened at 10:00 AM and the crowd was insane! The streets and sidewalks were so crowded that you had to walk at a snails pace hardly moving and really could not see any of the venders booths. The crowds really made this event unenjoyable and the space is not large enough to accommodate the amount of people attending. The vendors had beautiful setups and there were tons of flower installations and beautiful peonies. I also love how the town has so many peony varieties planted. Based on our experience today, I can't say that I'd want to come back to this festival anytime soon.

I'm updating my review. This is such a pretty event. They need to hold it somewhere else that's much larger. It can't facilitate the amount of people that come to this event. Every one of the reviews from this event have said the same thing. It's too crowded. They even spread out into the streets and it's not working. I couldn't tell the names of a lot of the booths because you couldn't see who it was because it was that crowded. I hope they move it to another location next year.

I loved the idea of this festival but it needs to be a ticketed event. I went with my mom last year and it was insane we left before we could even get to the main area due to how large the crowds were, ended up shopping and then left it was too overwhelming. Just thinking if there was an emergency or something..

This festival has really outgrown the space. I've gone every year the festival has taken place, and I'm honestly not sure if there was ever enough space to begin with. I did appreciate that they tried to expand out this year, but the space around seminary park was quickly overrun with people in less than two hours into the event. I'm not sure how much more this event can expand, but maybe making the day longer and/or adding another day could help spread out the crowd and help with parking. The other thing I noticed this year was how many vendors jacked up the prices for peonies. Many vendors were starting to charge $6-$7 dollars PER STEM for peonies, and I even saw one both going for $8. I really think the festival needs to mandate a cap on the peony prices. As for the classes that take place during the event, I feel like I can never hear what's going on. I think the classes might be better served by being hosted during the week leading up to the festival. I also felt like the flower displays were fewer and more lack luster than in previous years. This festival has so much potential, but I think it's time to go back to the drawing board.

Third year attending the Peony Fest. It's been fun to watch this event evolve over the years. We make the trek from downtown Indy and always pair our visit with a stroll through the Noblesville Farmers Market. It makes for a lovely half day outing. I'll admit that this event has grown a little more crowded than I'd prefer but I think that's an "east fix" of expanding into more neighboring streets to spread out the humans, lines, bottlenecks, etc. You'll find food and drink vendors, floral arrangements sold by the stem, face painters, etc. It could be interesting to add more interactive art type elements in future years- pop up peony painting experience, etc. it's truly a brilliant event and clever way to celebrate our state flower. Looking forward to future visits.

The crowds were just horrific and the parking was terrible with little or no direction.After an hour or so, with parking and making our way down to the park, there were just barely enough room to move on the sidewalks, and most of the streets were closed for either construction or whatever was going on in the town .Sorry, but we will not go back to this debacle

Beautiful flowers! Live music! Be prepared to wait in line due to the large crowds, but the offerings at each vendor booth make the wait well worth it. We have two elementary-aged kids, so we spent our visit in the Kid Zone area. It included arts & crafts, face paint, a free drawing station, and a playground. We stayed at the festival for 2 hours but honestly could have stayed all day. There was so much to see and do!People of all ages were in attendance. I would recommend packing some folding chairs or picnic blankets so that you have a place to enjoy the sights and sounds that the festival has to offer!

I was really excited to go to the Peony Festival for the first time. Downtown Noblesville is a lovely area. Unfortunately, the crowds were completely unmanageable. The closed roads due to construction didn't help. My fiancé and I were literally shoulder to shoulder with other people between the small sidewalks all the way into the street lined with vendors up to the park. We basically kinda looked around from the hill in the park (the one place I felt like I wasn't literally rubbing elbows with strangers) for 5 minutes, and left. Between seeing peonies for $6 a stem (insane) to the lines and crowds being so huge, you couldn't actually visit any vendors, it was a colossal waste of time. Unless they find a way to spread out this event, I won't go back next year.

Very, very crowded. They had TONS of beautiful flowers though, and many "Selfie setups" that were really pretty. Such as, a park bench rimmed in flowers, signs trimmed out (like in my photo), full backboards, VW Bug, iron bicycles, art work etc. decorated with flowers - all made for great selfies/photos. The booths were crafty and Etsy-ish, with some art from what I could see. I thought the items were very overpriced. I didn't look at the true art, like stoneware or paintings, so I can't really comment on those prices. The masses really made it kind of hard to take in the booths. The weather was fantastic, which I'm sure encouraged attendance. One thing I thought was poor planning was the lack of Porta Potty's. We walked the entire perimeter and only saw 3 and those 3 had a line so incredibly long it went waaaayyy down the street. Not sure how the planner thought 3 would be good for the 10k people they were expecting. Parking was especially easy. There were plenty of open and free lots. It was so easy in fact, that we first thought we were parking illegally on someone's lot. But other parkers assured us and as we walked to the corner, there was actual festival signage we couldn't see before - so we were all good. The traffic was major. It didn't help that the little city has a lot of construction and lane restrictions. Made for some frustrating driving. If you live close by - this would be awesome, for sure. We drove 45 minutes and it was an "OK" event for us. By the time we got out of there, the traffic frustrations took away any good feelings about it. We've decided that will be our one and only time there. I don't think I'll be saying "Oh boy the Peony Festival will be coming up!" in future years.