San Joaquin Asparagus Festival

Family fun, friendly, great giant carnival, huge variety of food vendors, good selection of arts & craft vendors. The Asparagus Ice Cream is a not my favorite, but that's just preference. I could eat the Bacon Wrapped Asparagus all day long!

What an unpleasant experience. Admissions people are rude.There were only 2 vendors serving asparagus outside of the festival's 2 offerings! Tickets for two and parking was $50.There was a pro-Trump / Let's Go Brandon store near the gate. What a terrible addition.

"The BIGGEST Asparagus Festival in the West!"San Joaquin Asparagus Festival is certainly big, but I can't verify that it is the biggest in the West. I can't even verify if there are other competing Asparagus Festivals in the West, so I must go along and accept this claim as true!This was my first visit and I did enjoy myself. The only complaint I had was the long line for the Deep Fried Asparagus. It took me at least 45 minutes to get what I really wanted, but when I did, I loved it.The Festival is arguably more entertaining for younger kids, but there is something for everyone. Plan to arrive early so you spend less time in your car stuck in traffic. This year parking cost $6 for vehicles and $3 for motorcycles; not too bad.Besides the Deep Fried Asparagus you must try Asparagus Ice Cream, even if for once in your lifetime! It is not bad at all, you might even like it!

So disappointed this year. For many years it was a tradition to go to the festival. This year was a horrible experience. We had to park way out in the dirt. The guy that was directing traffic parked us in a spot that would have had us blocked in. Luckily we moved some place else. When we finally got to the gate they were disorganized & separated us into lines for women & men, took forever. The line for asparagus was over an hour long. We also waited 40 minutes in line for other food from a place that had staff that didn't have any idea what to do. There was a very radical vegan group singing songs & trying to discourage people to not eat meat. They were rude & making horrible remarks about people walking by with food, all over a huge speaker. It was awful to stand in line waiting for our chicken wings & have to listen to it. The fairgrounds are a mess & are in need of a make over.

Thanks for a great family fun weekend! All the vendors had so much to sell, I definitely will be back again.The asparagus was all cooked amazing I took lots home for family. The atmosphere was perfect, security as always was there to protect and no drama! Very family safe event!! Thank you Noceti Family

Underwhelming is an understatement. This is a sad sad excuse for a "festival" there's a total of 3 asparagus food items available in the entire event....fried asparagus, a corn dog with two spears of asparagus stuck in the breading, and asparagus ice cream. The rest of the event is just really expensive food and beverages ($10 lemonade, $15 refillable soda), a weird assortment of vendors, and run down old carnival rides. The line to get in was 45-60 minutes, the line to buy fried asparagus was 30-45 min, the line for a 4 minute monster truck ride was almost an hour. At the end of the day four adults spent about $200 between parking, admission, and food (no alcohol even) and the only feeling we left with was "probably never need to do that again".

First time here. Located at the fair grounds in Stockton. Deep fried asparagus, asparagus ice cream, among other choices. Lots of other food choices. Vendors set up all around for some shopping. Tip of the day: don't buy too many food tickets, unless you are drinking alcohol. Most booths take money, some are cash only. There is also rides for the kids.

What's better than deep fried asparagus? Asparagus ice cream, of course! Luckily, I was able to try both during my first visit to the San Joaquin Asparagus Festival. I've been meaning to go to this festival for the last few years l, so it was nice to finally experience it. I was definitely expecting a lot more from the festival, but overall I can say that I had a pretty good time.This festival is perfect for children! There are lots of games and carnival rides to keep them busy while still having fun! I was really surprised at how cool it was this time around weather wise. If you know Stockton, you know that it can get to scorching hot temperatures! There was a cool breeze and it was actually kind of chilly. But hey... I ain't complainin' about it! There were lots of vendors selling all types of products ranging from mattresses, to cookware, to clothing and souvenirs. I even bought a couple of items for myself. It was a big turnout with tons of people but I was still able to maneuver around easily. Parking is $6 and the lot filled up quickly! I parked super far in a grassy area because there was no more dirt parking. Make sure you wear comfortable shoes because you may have to trek through grass and dirt!My favorite part of going to the festival besides trying out the food was for the performances. I was able to see Souls of the Rising Sun, an Afro Cuban group that belted out some amazing traditional African beats and dances. The leading lady really danced her behind off and I enjoyed every second of it! I also really enjoyed Morgan Wallen on the main stage. His original hit "Chainsmokin" along with the amazing covers that he sang really got he crowd going. My personal favorites were his Don Henley and Andre 3000 covers. I couldn't stop singing along on those ones. And now for the most important... the food! There were plenty of food options to go around! Asparagus burritos, asparagus pasta, bacon wrapped asparagus... you name is with "asparagus" and they probably had it there. In addition to the asparagus, they also had many popular carnival food items as well. There were pretty decent options for alcohol including beer, wine, shots, and margaritas. I came for the most popular items of course... the asparagus ice cream and that deep fried asparagus! I must admit that I came at the most absolute worst time! Be smart and come early or come near the end when the rush of people are gone. Otherwise, you'll be spending most of your time in those long lines!The deep fried asparagus was surprisingly a disappointment for me. The portion size was great, but the quality of the asparagus was just subpar. The asparagus itself was too firm and the fried skin lacked crispiness. The Parmesan was just kind of thrown right in the center so I couldn't really taste it throughout. I know this isn't a gourmet meal, but I was really expecting it to be better than it was. Through reading some of the previous reviews, it seems like the quality of the asparagus has gone down over the past few years. At least I'm not the only one that noticed. The ice cream was fair. It was my first time trying asparagus ice cream and the flavor was a bit different for my taste. Overall, I had a pretty enjoyable time but I think this would be a festival that I would frequent every couple of years instead of every year. Hopefully the quality of the deep fried asparagus will be better when I come back next time.

This year was my first time ever being at the Asparagus Festival and it's honestly pretty disappointing. We got tickets for food, but ended up with leftover tickets as most food vendors prefers cash and credit card over the tickets. We only used the tickets for drinks, fried asparagus (which was not worth $7 and over 30 minutes of waiting in line), and ice cream (it was basically vanilla flavor with asparagus pieces). In short, food was disappointing, not much to do for adults. I most likely won't come back again.

Went on a rainy Saturday, so no lines or wait for anything except 5 or 10 minutes for entry. 90% of this thing is unrelated vendors: do you want new windows for your house, need a new roof or solar panels, want a credit card for a sporting goods store, want to buy some imported clothes or pottery, want some home-made bath soap? We like cool rainy weather and no crowds, so we sort of had an interesting experience (e.g. 10 police cars patrolling two rows of several hundred cars in the parlking lot when they made plans for 10,000 cars) - if there were 50,000 people and huge lines for everything, we would have left right away.