Actually, it has a local flavor, but I don't like the taste of alcohol, big boobs and pretentious money.
In comes the Las Vegas Harvest Festival. We saw the ads on TV and thought that it looked lame but fun for an afternoon. After all, they showed people eating roasted corn and other people holding up plastic bags and exclaiming how they love free stuff. That's two of my favorite things, roasted corn and free stuff. How could we not go? Right? I mean even if it is bad, we can still eat roasted corn and partake in a lame goodie bag. Hey, even a lame goodie bag is a good goodie bag. Plus, we could look at produce and junk, right? I think the actual tag line was "food, fun, arts, crafts and free stuff!"
The lead up to the day we planned to go offered up some bad news. It costs money to get in. It costs $9 each to get in. Greg wondered what would happen if Walmart charged for people to get in to shop. He makes a good point. So, people pay money to have booths in the festival and people pay to get into the festival. Whoever is putting this on is one greedy SOB. They have to pay for a venue and the horrible live band playing in the back that interested no one. In return, they get this wonderful double dip of money from vendors and shoppers.
Well, we were desperate for something different. Greg woke me up early to go.....oh damn, I forgot that. The stupid festival was only open until 5:00 PM. This stupid "24-hour" town rolls up its sidewalk after 5PM for anyone that isn't drunk, horny or gambling. It seems the only thing open late is Barnes and Noble, which Greg and I have gone to on several, bored occasions. One time, after going to Barnes and Noble, we got pulled over at a DUI checkpoint. First time for that, I think we were the only ones that weren't getting arrested though.
We get in the car after I found two canned goods items to get $2 off each. They donate it to some battered women's shelter, because that is what Las Vegas has plenty of, battered women. We went to pick up our friend, TIna. In the car, I felt bad because I forgot to mention the canned goods discount. However, quite oddly, Tina had a can of roast beef in her purse. Fortune favors those who carry canned goods. There was actually a reason why she was carrying the can of roast beef around, but I like to leave that a mystery.
We get there and they are charging $3 for parking. Thus far, this shopping experience has cost us three: $24, a jar of spaghetti sauce, a can of peaches and a can of roast beef. However, we were hungry and ready to get to the roasted corn.
You can probably guess from my build-up that there was no roasted corn, as presented in the commercials. The kicker was that there was not a lot in the way of prepared food. "Food" was in their tagline. However, the only prepared food was a place that had dried out chicken fried steaks and the convention center concession stand with $8 hamburgers. So, by food, they meant the ample soup and dip mix stands that were everywhere mixed in with places selling beef jerky, candy, jams, and vinegar. There were three places selling vinegar and one of them was named "Tres Classique", a name that makes me picture a redneck trying to be pretentious (not that there is anything wrong with rednecks or being pretentious). We weren't really able to approach the soup and dip mix stands as they were always surrounded by snot-nose kids gobbling up the free samples.
There was no produce, so the name "Harvest" was a bit misleading. At least there was the free stuff, right? I saw people walking around with the same goodie bags that I saw people on TV holding up.. I figured that we just haven't come across the free stuff place yet. Tina suggested that maybe we were too late and they ran out. For $24 and canned goods, I better get free stuff. I found the free stuff booth and they weren't out. I was finally going to experience the excitement of getting free stuff. It's a high I never get tired off. I didn't care if it was tampon samples, I was elated. It turned out that the free stuff, the thing that pleased the happy people on TV, was the plastic bag. So, when they were holding up the plastic bag on the TV and saying "free stuff", they weren't referring to the stuff in the bag, they were referring to the cheap, plastic bag.
This place was a crap fest. Basically, if you could operate tin snips or a leather punch, you could have a booth. Here is an example of some of the crafts:
Put a picture of a cat sleeping on a T-shirt under the banner "Nap Attack" and you know the type of arts and crafts that were at this show. Very cheap, homemade stuff mixed in with semi-professional stuff. It was all overpriced. A stupid wind chime made with small wrenches cost $39. A lamp made out of plastic was $70. I bought mustard for $5.50, which is a rip off, but hey, I needed mustard. I also bought some soap. Greg knew that I was going to buy it before I did and said so to Tina, because it was a gay couple running the place. Damn him, he was right. It was a perfect trifecta of selling points for me: homemade soap, gay couple and bay rum scent. I just love homemade soap.
So, this is the local flavor of Las Vegas. Overpriced, screw-you-anyway-possible-out-of-your-money, crap.
But wait, it's not local flavor, the Las Vegas Harvest Festival is a traveling festival. This crap fest wasn't even local. What a slap in the face!
We do have a local farmer's market, but I hear that it is just as bad.
