Pacific Rim Street Fest

As seen on http://pacificrimstreetfest.com/The Pacific Rim Street Fest has been CANCELLED for 2017Unfortunately, and with profound apologies, the Asian Pacific Rim Foundation and the PRSF Committee have chosen to cancel this year's Festival. We struggled with this decision, knowing it will have an affect on our sponsors, as well as on the public, the vendors, and countless others. The funding that supports the Street Fest was substantially less than necessary to produce a successful event, and although we worked hard to find a way to proceed, after considerable discussion we agreed that the cancellation was unavoidable. We will take this time to regroup once more, reconsider our fundraising strategies and begin to plan for the future of the Pacific Rim Street Festival. Your support and commitment to the event are deeply appreciated, and we did not make this decision without considering its substantial impact on our communities. We look forward to serving our Pacific Rim communities in the near future.Sincerely,Emmylou Dalaza, Asian Pacific Rim Foundation Presidentand interim Chair, Pacific Rim Street Fest Planning Committee

Pacific Islander & Hawaiian Awareness Blossoming in All of it's BeautySITREPNever is Old Sacramento decked out in a more exotic and gorgeous manner. Beautiful booths, kiosks, food vendors, and active-life organizations are out in full-force to to share their culture and history with those willing to listen.SETUPI've been enjoying the Pacific Rim Street Festival for more than 15 years, on and off (though more ON) and I have to say it remains one of the highlights of my Springs. The streets are filled all along the major grid of Old Sac, but that doesn't detract from the all the regular businesses in Old Sac. There is a tremendous synergy that goes with the whole business community that attracts a lot fun energy with the people that pack the streets.MARTIAL ARTSI have always been a fan of Andy Ah Po and his school dojo as they perform many exciting feats of martial art prowess for the crowd. As a good friend, I look forward to seeing Andy and his students.THE FOOD!You can't lose here as you have so many culinary delights to choose from, with noodles, rice and fried delicacies aplenty. Filipino cuisine seems to be my favorite at these ventures since I don't usually find it any other time.THE SWAGThere are a lot of free souvenirs to collect from various booths, and I have to say that the Dragon and Lion puppets are some of the cutest. Which before I forget, this is a GREAT environment for kids, to learn about other cultures if they themselves are not from or exposed often to Asian cultures. The opportunity to learn from so many friendly people is a boon to promoting great diversity awareness.THE LOWDOWN Whether for food, cultural arts & crafts, martial art demonstrations, and did I mention the food?, you can't go wrong on having a great time here.

This year's theme is Spices. I'm not exactly sure how they incorporated the theme into the actual festival though.If you come here, it is best to park in Downtown Plaza then walk over to Old Sacramento. At the festival, I was most concerned with what it had to offer in terms of food. I decided to get the BBQ Chicken Kabob. The prices were not posted, so I didn't see how much it cost until I was at the counter- $7. Not worth it! Especially when I found out that my friend who also ordered a kabob at another food stand paid $5. :/ The only other thing I got was the Halo Halo at Lollicup. Halo-Halo (mix-mix) is a Filipino dessert. This version consisted of red bean, white bean, sweet chick bean, red kaong, coconut string, coconut jellies, and flan topped with shaved ice, vanilla & ube ice cream. It was ok. It needed more ube ice cream! Overall, I wished they had more of a variety of foods.There were four separate stages spread out in different areas, so there are plenty of performances you can watch. The only performance I really watched was the Hmong Cultural Dance and the Chinese Harpist. I also stood in line for about an hour at the McDonald's Family Pavilion. I scored a free Asian inspired bag and two $2 gift cards. McDonald's dollar menu- here I come!

There's been a change in venue for this year's festival. Instead of it being held in Old Sacramento, this year's festival was held at Southside Park.Hewlett Packard showcased its latest technology, Sprout, which is a 3-D scanning and printing software and HP took people on a guided tour. Its printer creates three-dimensional object, taking up to seven hours to complete. But the highlight of the Pacific Rim Festival was Ronald McDonald. He was jovial and turned to my camera and made a pose. I was suffering from the worst allergies and Ronald McDonald brightened up my day. The food vendors were selling their food cheap. Ten pieces of lumpia for seven dollars. The Rainbow Snow Shave Ice were selling grilled cheese sandwiches for five bucks and Sweet Corn Cafe were selling its corn for four dollars each, and sun tea or fresh lemonade for three dollars. T-shirt vendors were selling shirts of past Pacific Rim events for five dollars a piece. The new location for the festival is a marked improvement from its traditional venue in Old Sac.

I heard about this event from one of my friends who is a native to Sacramento. She has been attending annually. I made an effort to include this in my calendar once I found out about it and told my family to keep this day reserved [May 19th] :)We arrived at a parking lot in downtown Sacramento around 2pm, got my parking ticket validated in Macy's (first 3 hours are free!). Walked over to Old Sac through the tunnel area and started going around all the booths. There were a lot of people!We were able to get some free swags (Wells Fargo-chopsticks, red envelopes, calendars | Kaiser Permanente- paper fans | McDonald's- gold pin (for beating my dad in dice version of rock, paper & scissor, cute reusable bag, free smoothie coupons | mosquito repellent toilettes, mail opener, pencils from booths that I can't remember.) There were volunteers passing out popsicles too!! It was so refreshing on a hot day.Plenty of food booths and stage performances.I will definitely try to come back next year. Perhaps as a volunteer or working for a company in a booth!

I admit, my reason for attending this event is because I love lion dancing. It's one of my favorite things - ever! They taught it at my old martial arts school, but I was already taking two classes and couldn't manage another. So I catch it when I can! My kid was so excited by the lion dancing he wants to learn how (better see if my old school still offers it).Secondly, I want my son exposed to some of his culture. We are pretty mixed with Chinese and Filipino being some of the dominant ancestry. My Asian relatives all live far away so this fest is a good opportunity to show him some traditional dances and other demonstrations on the many stages, buy him a 1/2 Pinoy T-shirt, and get a wide mix of yummy foods. Thirdly, there are a lot of freebies! You can score some shirts, bags, fans, etc. My son liked the kid's craft area where he could make dragon masks, lion puppets, weird little bugs, and lots more. He' is SO not into arts and crafts, but this area really appealed to him. My only advice to people who are thinking of attending in the future is to bring your wallet, bring some water, prepare for the sun (being in May you never know what kind of weather you will get), and grab a program.

Haven't been for a few years but now that it is in the park and lots of vendors from the Pacific Rim, should be lots of fun and will write a full review for 2017... In the meantime please add this to your calendar for May 2017.

Not EVEN ENOUGH food vendors!!! Lines way too long to wait for $15 small ass egg roles and small plates of food. They could make more $$ if they'd just have more vendors. Our family's leaving w/o any food ...going to restaurant instead!! How disappointing.

Okay, technically the Pacific Rim Street Fest is NOT an amusement park, however there is not an "annual event" subcategory. The Pacific Rim Street Fest has been a part of the Sacramento community since 1993. It is held every year in Old Town Sac the third Sunday of May. It has been rated by Sacramento Magazine as the Number One Thing to Do in Sacramento (http://pacificrimstreetfest.com/picture_library/must_do.jpg). Its a great, public event that showcases the diversity and richness of Pacific Rim cultures....and its FREE!There are generally five different entertainment stages where you will find amazing Tahitian dancers to lion dancing to choral groups - and much more! The two biggest stages have adjoining beer gardens for thirsty adult patrons to enjoy drinking and entertainment. Food vendors from all over line up the streets and the aromas lure you in. Various ethnic foods can be found - you could eat your way through the festival if you wanted! I have been going for the last four years now and each year it is just a lot of fun plus you get to see a lot of familiar faces. From elected officials to favorite entertainers its just a fun place to people watch.Check it out!

This years Pacific Rim was pretty good again. The layout was different than what we were used to in the past. Instead of having the food vendors all on one street ...............(it was 2nd ave) They put them at opposite ends of each other. Fewer vendors (food and retail) just like what I have seen lately in other festivals this year. I wonder if it is because of the cost involved doing events like this.Not as many people that I noticed. Easy to move around. People in Sacramento are a bit stupid. (at least at this event) I had to move the crowd out of the way to make way for a vendor in one of those electric carts they use at these events that carry them and items to their tents/booth.These idiots were in line for food and the person driving this cart said she had no horn and seemed rather shy about moving people out of here way. So I split up the crowd and made a pathway for this cart. I only got one person with an attitude. But she moved anyway.................... LOLOh, by the way..... did I mention I was using a walker doing this ? I was walking in front of this cart for this volunteer so she could get her electric cart through the crowd.... LOL I just had surgery 2 days prior to this event so I needed this walker. At first nobody wanted to move, but then when they saw the walker, they changed their mind real fast...... LOL. Stupid people kinda pisses me off, so I went for it. Before I stepped in, nobody was moving out of her way....... Idiots..... LOL.... Have a great day people