New Braunfels Pickle Festival

We’re peeling back the layers of the New Braunfels Pickle Festival 2025! As seasoned festival-goers and event enthusiasts, we had quite the experience — and we’re sharing it all with you!

In this episode, we take a balanced look at what stood out, what we loved, and a few things we think could have been handled differently. With so much buzz (and a bit of controversy) surrounding this year’s event, we’re giving our honest take from both an attendee and professional perspective.

Whether you were there or just curious about the drama, tune in for a deep dive into one of Texas’ most talked-about festivals!

Transcript

 We're the Essary family and we're exploring America one destination at a time. On this episode of TravelEssary we are going to share with you guys our crazy experience. At the new Braunfels, pickle festival. Let's chat. 

Welcome and thank you for joining us on this episode. As we talk about the pickle festival. And before we get into that. This is a little bit of a deviation from what we said last week, whenever we were going to talk about Hilton head and we are definitely going to do an episode about Hilton head, that you will not want to miss. But I believe that this is something that needs to be addressed because we've kept up with some things that have happened. Either. Because of this event or at this event. And a lot of negativity about it. Some good things have been said about it. And we just want to give a unbiased opinion about.  Our personal thoughts  on the pickle festival. Also, we want to thank you guys for sticking with us. 

We're so sorry. We did not have an episode out last week. It's the first time that we have missed a week, but we have had a nasty, nasty flu bug hit our house and between losing voices and being stopped up. And we may still be a bit scratchy today, but it's just, there's no way we could have recorded and produced the. The quality content that you guys deserve. 

So thank you for sticking with us. And yeah, we, we've got something super interesting to talk about today because there's actually a lot of news revolving around this pickle festival in new Braunfels.  And new Braunfels, Texas. Cause there are multiple new Braunfels. There are new Bronzeville, Texas for sure. And.  It's really cool because we're at a level. Either. Professionally doing what we're doing. Um, professionally in our jobs or just even in our family lives of being able to look at this from so many different angles. 

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Because it's not just going to the event and just seeing what they have to show us just at face value. Like , there's so much other things that  we can see, we can recognize on the outskirts and  how the, the ticket sales were as how the website was set up. 

How, you know, the traffic was all the way down to the vendors and the foods to all the. Nitty gritty details of either they got right or they got wrong. , we're able to kind of pick those up a little bit different than what most people. Can see just by looking with their eyes only. Yeah. And we went into this festival completely blind. How I even found the festival was that I like to research, you know, specific areas. 

, I get on Google, we've talked about this before. I just researched what events are going on, you know, over the next four months. And I saw multiple places across Texas across the Dallas Fort worth area and around San Antonio, Austin areas, even Houston areas. That we're having. Pickle themed festivals or parades or concerts, as weird as that sounds. 

And I was like, man, I want to go to one of these because our family loves pickles. And I found the one new Braunfels that was on a date that we were able to go. I knew nothing. About, um,  JG events is the one who puts on this specific one. I knew nothing about what to expect. We've never been to any kind of pickle. Parades or festivals before. 

So we went in like completely blind as far as  expectations. Go. Well, not only that, 

even at new Braunfels where, you know, this is a new city for us, we've traveled through it because it's right outside of San Antonio. But it's not really a place that you or I, or as a family have gone. And really visited and explored. Now they do have the water park that is there a slitter.  which I went there, I think in like eighth grade or something for band, it was one of, uh,  I guess a prize for winning something. But that's the only time. 

So I don't really remember anything about it. And so I had to do some looking up, you. I'll be like, w you know, where are we going? How are we going to get there? What's kind of the layout of the land and everything. And I mean, new Bronzeville. 

 A population of 111,000 people. So it's, it's a, I mean, this is a fairly large city. Even for Texas standards.  And so it's, a large city , it's larger than in any of the cities that are around us. Yeah, for sure. And so by going there, you know, on their website, they said that this was the world's largest. Okay. So afterwards, because after what we're going to talk about and all the things that I saw on the news, and if you guys want to see a lot of the things going on related to this, if you have no clue what we're talking about, it's super interesting just to follow along. To see both perspectives of the good and the bad, but it's in a pickle festival. 

It's a Facebook page. Go check it out. But, um, uh, there's also a local news about it, but I looked it up. What did world's largest mean? Because it definitely didn't seem like the world's largest. And what they mean by that is it has the most.  Pickle related vendors. That's what it meant by world's largest. 

So that was a little bit deceptive.  

I did not know that. Yeah. I didn't know that either until we were looking it up. Looking until afterwards. And I was curious, like, because we talked about math for the world's largest, that was pretty small. And I was like, how is this the world's largest? And it could just be that there's not very many pickle festivals out there to begin with. But it meant in terms of vendors, pickle related vendors. Interesting. So. Before we get into the pros and cons and what we saw the insides and outsides and everything. 

We're just going to talk about our general trip. And just all the good experiences that we had.  And some of the bad experiences that we had.  We just want you to be fully informed, I guess. Um, this is an annual event. They actually do it in multiple locations. Houston. Um, it's. It originated in Houston. Houston. New Braunfels, Kingwood. 

, I know they have multiple locations. And so before you go, , you know, listen to it from top to bottom and decide if it's something that you would. I want to experience. And I guarantee you. They will be better next year.  Regardless of how bad that it was a guarantee that we better next year.  And we hope the things that we saw will be better. Yes. 

And if they listen to this podcast, we're going to give some really good insight and some suggestions that will make it. Just a little bit better. Yeah. So let's talk about what we really enjoyed. One. We love pickles. And we really enjoyed being able to take, go and experience and taste all of the pickle related products and stuff that they had. So I'm going to rephrase. I like pickles. 

Oh, you miss the, and Justin loved. We love pickles.  It was interesting on how they took.  I don't want to say they're they're normal products. And put pickles with it, but a lot of them did that.  

 Another thing that I saw on their website. For anybody who wanted to be a vendor in the festival. One of the things that was required was at least one of their products had to be pickle related. So a lot of people have commented about it being a  glorified farmer's market. And while I don't totally disagree with that statement. If they did keep to the theme of things being pickle related. 

So whether it was clothing or type of food, or even since like, if you were  sailing candles from like that something had to be. Pickle related. So I thought that was unique because it does help. A lot of small businesses get their names out there. Well, not only that they also get to retain the world's largest. 

Yeah. Right. Making sure that every vendor has something that's pickle related. And they get to count them. Yeah. In that, but we, we originally got there at 9 45 ish. And we pull into what I can only imagine is, um, bless their hearts. They did the best that they possibly could. These young people were out there, teenagers. Teenagers that were directing traffic, trying to get people to park in a respectable. Orderly fashion. Um, So we got there early enough that we really didn't have the fight. The traffic that was either coming from out of town or, I mean, we got there right at nine 40. We didn't mess with the whole people. You know, usually, especially for. The central Texas Dallas Austin area. 

It's a three hour drive. So you get up and you leave at nine o'clock while you're there by noon. And you still have all day to stay in there before you, you could travel back that night. So we figured that the normal big rush is going to be around noon. And we wanted to make sure that we at least gave ourselves opportunity to see everything. And if we wanted to exit, we could. 

Yeah. And we're just normally early morning people. That's just how we are in general. They're normally early people. I am Jeremy to come along with us because we are all normal, early.  

So we get, there we go in, um, revenue, great time. , one of the first vendors that we stopped and talked to.  Uncle D. Punk BS. The bees that's who it was. Yeah. And dude he's so he's an ex veteran. Um, he was a fantastic guy. He had some really good. Products. Some really good pickle products. Matter of fact, we still got some in the fridge that if we run out, we already have is like inflammation so we can order some more. 

Oh, Well, I, I looked him up on Facebook. Yeah, Instagram. He actually is known for his seasoning specifically. I looked at those and I was like, oh man, they look really good, but we weren't there for seasoning or our farmer's market type stuff.  Maybe he ships.  And we can order the seasonings that he put to make the pickles, and maybe we can make our own. Yeah. 

So, he's a really cool guy. Go support him.  , we tagged them in our recent Facebook and Instagram posts too. So yeah.  Um, But we got there in the, at simple spore us and we, I mean, we tasted them. They were really good. We picked up two packages of pickles. We're still munching on them even today and just having a. Uh, a good time. I mean. We have plenty of room around us.  It was really windy. 

, I will put that out. Okay. So this was during that dust storm that was coming through Texas. And if you live in the panhandle or all the way through central Texas, you know exactly what I'm talking about, it's been insane for like, Three or four days, like the wind was just absolutely insane. 

Like hurricane force, gust winds coming through. And we lost like tiles off of our roof and things and where we're in central Texas. I can't even imagine what the panhandle has been dealing with. But along with that was like a wall of dust.  And so every time we took a sample in which was wonderful because a majority of the vendors did have samples. 

So I commend them for that. But every time we did, we'd get like a mouthful of wind and sand. 

 The wind was so bad that most of the vendors number one, didn't have a canopy. So I felt really sorry for them because they were out there in that heat. And they didn't have anything to protect themselves or anything from the sign. 

And then a lot of them were just holding on for dear life. Oh my gosh. I saw this one, couple, we walked past them. And she is just like, she's struggling so bad. I felt so bad for her because she's holding onto our canopy, like so afraid to let go. And the wind actually picked her up once or twice. No. 

And it noticed that. The serious, scary on her side for sure.  

The food trucks also were super amazing.  Jeremy and Justin wanted to try a fried pickle and peanut butter sandwich. I don't know.  So my thing. So the backstory of this is what we like to do whenever we go to these advanced, especially if it's very specific, like pickle. Is, we want to sample the variety as much as possible. So, whether that is from food trucks or, um, from drinks to what people are eating to, what people are wearing. We want to sample as much as possible, but stay within our budget because we don't want to over  extend ourselves. 

Right. But the first food truck that we came up to, we just looked at the menu. It had a lot of your mundane stuff that was on it. And then one caught her eye.  . They originally have a fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich fried. PB and J and on this event, they added pickles to it and took out the gentleman, took out the jelly. And so we were like, why not?  We both like peanut butter.  I'm not a peanut butter and jelly person. 

So I'm really glad they took out the jelly part. But we're both peanut butter people and it puts pickle flavor on it. So why not?  So. 

We're ordering and the wind is just blowing away. Oh, man. I felt so bad, not just for the vendors, but for the food truck, people. Because as they're in their trucks, cooking, like all that dust is like coming into there. They're cooking atmosphere. At one point I heard the guy say, just shut up. 

Oh,  

a huge gust came through as they were deep frying.  Yeah. And then of course with the wind, the trailers are rocking back and forth. So it can't be comfortable in there trying to prepare food.  They did a fantastic job on making this sandwich it was. Big two, it was like a big giant,  Monte Cristo style. It really was. 

I mean, as far as like the dough and the frightening, that was absolutely what it is. So take a Mani crystal, take the bread.  Put love of peanut butter on the inside. With slices of pickle.  And that's what it tasted like. , there were so many options. There was fried pickles. There was like street tacos with pickles on them. 

That was new for me. , I'm not sure I'd enjoy that very much, but. There were so many. Unique items. And then there were, you know, Frozen lemonade or frozen eliminated with pickle or frozen pickled slushy type things, just so, so many different options and everything that we saw and everything that we did actually get to taste and eat. Was amazing.  

I saw this really cool shirt that I could not find. Mainly because the longer we stayed there.  Things just started happening. Yeah. We'll get into that in a minute, but. He had a shirt on that says I'm kind of a big deal. And it had an I L L. I had a pickle standing beside it. I was like, oh my gosh, I got to find that shirt because I definitely would've wore that shirt. Just continually, not only there, but like continually. Yeah, there were a lot of things that I want us to look at that we never actually got to look at. 

So the first I would say. 45 minutes. We were able to just hop from vendor to vendor. Um, for my first 30, 45 minutes, like there was no one in line at the bathroom. So when we first walked in. , there weren't too many people around the vendors. There were several, or we were the only people that were at that vendor when we stopped and bought products. After the first, I would say 45 minutes of us being there.  

It got crazy, really fast. I don't, I don't think he got crazy.  I think.  the way they positioned some of the vendors. Just wasn't really that. The flow kind of got congested in one central area. And whenever that happened, It just kind of ballooned out from there.  And so while we were on one side of the, everything that's going on, visiting all these other vendors, it was cool. 

Everything was flowing, everything was free. Everything was, I mean, everything was going great. But the closer we started getting towards, um, where the headline music and some other stuff. It was just more congested because everyone just wanted to be in that central location.  Well also, I think that was where the main  entrance was located as well. So, no, that was actually the very opposite. Of the main entrance. I saw the most people coming through.  

And we're going to get into it. 

Cause it was, there were some weird things that could have just helped flow things a little bit better, in my opinion. Well, let's just get into what we saw that, you know, we, we didn't particularly like, because honestly, Other than how amazing the vendors, where their products. I mean the vendors, the vendors did a fantastic job, , even whenever it started getting really crowded around that one area. 

And then it just kind of growing up. Attitudes, even though the wind. Oh, yeah. They were flowing. They were talking, they were selling their goods. You know, they were willing and Dylan and everything was, everything was going great. I mean, I don't, I don't think of anyone who had a bad experience due to a vendor, not doing what they normally do. Right. Um, food trucks were doing a great job. 

 They're producing and serving as many people as fast as possible while dealing with the wind and dealing with the adverse. Um, circumstances. That were just out of their control. But other than that aspect, you know, I can't say there's much beyond that, that I enjoyed personally. Yes. Once you get past the vendors. And their personalities and their products or their products.  It kind of goes downhill.  Fast. 

Yeah. And for me, the biggest thing was how crowded it was very quickly. Like you couldn't get. Even to see what a vendor was offering, because there was such a large line and crowd around that stall.  You're absolutely right. It filled up extremely fast. , the space that the confined space that we were in, where they were trying to get everyone. All the vendors and everyone at, um,  Filled up extremely fast. And because it filled up so fast that no one was really leaving. It had compounded other issues that people were having. 

Number one, it was a really windy. And  whenever you get your food from a vendor . You wanted a quiet place outside of the wind that you can eat too. You had to go through. The entire crowd to get to that spot. Yeah. Which was like, like trying to go through a dense forest. 

It was insane trying to go through all those people and keep our family of five in tax.  It was so weird, but it was one of those things where. I don't want to say that I almost had an anxiety attack, but  I needed to get from point a to point B. But there's no clear, easy route to get from point a to point B. Without me just bulldozing someone. 

Yeah. And so I feel like for the most part, um, in our experience from the time that we were there, People were very friendly because they also were like, I don't like this environment either. Like this atmosphere kind of made everyone tense, but yet everyone was still like, I'm sorry. Excuse me, excuse me. 

Because it feels like every three seconds you were bumping into somebody or stepping on someone's toes or, you know, crashing into the booth of a vendor because there's. I can't even explain like how many people were there, but  I don't, recall us.  Encountering anyone with a bad attitude. No, , there wasn't any kind of customers that were there that were just a rate and belligerent, like everyone was cordial. 

Everyone. You could tell that agitation. Yeah. They were cordial with each other. But I definitely heard snippets of conversation of people being frustrated with the situation in general. , and of course it was starting to heat up. It was starting to get hotter. We went and it was really cool in the morning time. 

And, but sex is really weird. You know, it'll go from 40 in the morning to 80, 80. In the afternoon. And. 

The hotter it gets, of course, the more agitation. Cause the more uncomfortable you are on the outside, which will just expound what's going on on the inside. 

But we ended up getting, um, fraud, pickles. Of course.  But the only place to go sit at, we had to go through everyone and I pretty much just cut. I pretty much had just made a lane. I was like, look the space between these two vendors as being enough for people to walk through. And that's where we want. Several people followed us after that. 

No one was going in between that. Um, but after we went through there, there were several people who like it came a little path. Because if not,  we have to go deal with the huge crowd. And , I'm definitely gonna talk about the huge crowd, because I think there's a lot of things that needs to be said about the huge crowd in one particular area, or to go back through the main. Boulevard that they had . I mean either way is going to take us. 1520 minutes just to get around them. I personally found it super, super weird that this seating area. I was on the opposite end of where the food trucks were. 

Yes, they were on opposite ends. Yes. I thought that was weird. You had to walk all the way back through the vendors to go to the seating area. Why were the food trucks? Not next? That was something I had never seen before. At an event or a festival like this, that was odd to me in general. So I didn't particularly like that because we're the kind of family. 

Um, we've talked about this before, where we want to try a little bit of everything. So we're going to get one thing here. One thing there, one thing here, and then we're all going to. Um, You know, taste it so we can all have bits of each thing. But the problem with that was that if we got one thing and went and sat down to eat it.  It took us 30 or 40 minutes to get that one thing, because one, the lines are growing larger. 

And two, you had a way through this crowded ocean of people to get to the.  The part where you sit down to eat and then Wade back through to get back  and so it would have taken us all day just to try more than the.  Few things that like, we went in there wanting to try something from each food truck and that absolutely did not happen. It was almost impossible, actually. I think we, we tried for three, four.  Three. I think we only got to three

we wanted more because man, we definitely saw them. Yeah.  I'm getting something from each truck, but that just wasn't possible. They had it going on for sure. Um, the other thing and probably the biggest downfall that I've seen. Through any kind of comment and especially one that I saw. And I'm so glad that whenever we walked in. We took care of business right at the very beginning, because if we had to any other time during the day, Uh, we probably would have left anyways and just called it a day. But they had porta Johns. Which is not  a negativity on porta Johns. 

I think Porter, Jolene. Issues using them can be a great thing if they're maintained, if they're cleaned and if they have all the amenities. Um,  This didn't have either. It didn't have any of those. Yeah. , when we first got there, everyone needed to go to the bathroom real quick, because we just came from a super long drive. 

And then we had to wait in line to get into the festival. There was no one in line when we did get there for the bathroom. So we were able to go first, but, , there was no toilet paper, none of them were stocked and someone had to go like get toilet paper or one of the workers and staff had to go run and find some because when the doors opened there wasn't any, which another thing that I found really strange for an event for when they opened for them not to be totally stopped. But by the time we left, which we were only there for about what an hour and a half an hour and 45 minutes. Oh, almost two hours. 

Not exactly, but almost two hours. Yeah. Um, by the time we left, there were at least 80 people in line for those bathrooms. Just waiting, like where. The porta Johns are to where the almost aligned to come into the park was just a line of people waiting to go to the restrooms. And there was.  There was only 12.  Total.   total 12 bathrooms. 

Oh man.  And so there was three where we were, and then there was a nine in another location that no one really knew about. Oh, it was in the very far side of .  That one entrance that most of the people were coming through. Right. And so if there was like on the very back, it was just, it was really weird. Usually whenever you go to big events like this or places that have something like this. So we know we travel a lot. 

We go to a lot of things.  Either number one, all the porta Johns or all together in one space. That we give people multiple chances to go to multiple places.  Or they're split up evenly between two different areas. Yeah. Either at the front entrance. Or they're kind of separated kind of where, you know, you're sitting to eating type place because that's usually everyone's break time. , but , not to be clean, , not to have all the amenities. It was just not to be maintained.  From, I mean, I guarantee you, we were probably the F.  We've probably the first. 75 people. So use the re. The restrooms.  Less than that I would say, well, I know the vendors had been there for a while.  So the vendors told me they got there at like seven or seven 30. And as. We're getting the peanut butter stuff and they're telling us. Um,  We've been sitting here for like two hours waiting for people to come in. Yeah. Like the bidders were like, worried, like, okay, Hey, is this event still going on? 

Now there's some other things that I'm not going to 100% put on.  Um, Who who'd you say, put this on. I think it's called J G events. JG. I'm not going to put this solely on JG on some of it, because I think some blame needs to go in other places as well.   Last thing, which I know Jeremy's going to talk about big time, um, is as we were leaving the parking situation, So when we got there again, there was like three teenagers. 

When you first came in. And they were just asking people if you pre bought a ticket, but then everybody was still going through. So I don't, I don't really know what they were doing. But then you had to go find your own parking spot, basically in a field. Uh, that's where I saw most of the parking was. 

And by the time we left, there were spots where people were parked four rows deep, which means the people in the two middle rows would not have been able to get out. And if that happened, which I'm sure it did, I feel so bad for those people have no telling how long they were stuck there because they couldn't leave. And.  Just leaving the parking lot.  Parking lot air quotes. It took us like 30 minutes to get out because as we were trying to maneuver our way out of this field, which had no rhyme or reason to it. More people were entering. In the same location and there was no like,  

 there was no entrance or exit. 

It was all one big conglomerate mess.  And as we were getting ready to leave.  The parking attendance, we'll call them. Um, we're nowhere to be found. Yeah, no one was there by the time we left and that was by like 1230. Yeah. So people were just coming and going and finding where they could and just park their vehicles. 

And, um,  I guess some people do not take into consideration. Hey, if there are two cars in front of me. And I park right here. The person in the middle can not get out. I don't know if they're just don't think of that or if they're just not considerate, I would never have done that. And I would have been ticked off if it would have happened to me. 

And I have a baby in the car with me. I would've never have done that. Um, don't be that rude crude dude. Don't be that person. And if they didn't do it intentionally, then maybe be more mindful of the situation that you're in. Be more mindful of others when you're in situations like that. Especially if everyone is just parking wherever they want to, because I mean, that's what it was. 

So whenever,  and it wasn't because everyone just was like,  Being rebellious. There was nothing to indicate of where to go or where to park. And we were just kind of guessing. So.  I guess that would be a great time to talk about our suggestions. Yeah. Which, you know, Jeremy working for a city, you know, and then putting on a lot events, he has actual experience in this type of situation. So to kind of give you a little bit of background .  One of the things that I get to do for my job. Because I get to help special events. Come to our city. Whether you're using our,  town center park, whether you're using, um, baseball fields. 

It doesn't matter if you're putting on a special event. In our city, I get to be a part of it from the city standpoint to help you.  Have the best event that you could possibly have. Yeah. And then on a minor scale of that, you know, we've been youth leaders for 10 years were recently retired, but, um, again, putting out a lot of events and not all of them being at. Our churches, but in places in the cities that we live in, Right. 

And being able to coordinate. Between cities and advance. And, um, so you have a perspective of doing it both ways. You have a perspective of being the city, where the event is coming in, and then you have the perspective of being the event that is working with the city.  So.  I'm going to split  the first three things that I talk about. Between, um, JG.  JG events, JG. Vince from new Braunfels. Because a population of 111,000 people. Should have no problem whatsoever putting on this event inside their city. 

So I have read different comments. Saying there were 10,000 to 30,000 people there. Um, that attended the event that day. I do believe it was on the higher end, just because of the pure amount of insanity that we saw. Um, but yes, a town that size should be able to handle 30,000 people event. I mean. Especially since you already have slitter barn. Which brings in a massive amount of people. Every weekend. Um, I think it was already kicked off because this was also the spring break ish type area. 

So , I'm putting blame , on the city as well.  Um, again, this is where I'm going to be completely unbiased. I'm not putting any blame on anybody. Um, because just reading through different comments and stuff. , I don't know, who's at fault for a lot of it. But many of the commenters from new Braunfels said that they were untold a lot of things about the event. 

They were not informed about some things. I could definitely see that. Uh, okay. So that in my opinion, , that's a breakdown , on so many different levels. For sure. Communication because number one, your event, people. Should know that this is going on, they should be in that communication, , They already had a, they were selling tickets. 

So it had been real easy to find out how many tickets they've sold.  The city could have asked those questions. Um, they knew something like this was coming in. I think it was definitely, yeah. Uh, mutual. Yeah. There's prior history. Uh, Houston that, you know, this happened, how many people showed up there kind of. You know, get rough numbers, something that's even close because the very first thing, since we love our festival, so we're going to show up.  

So the very first thing that you definitely gonna run into is parking and their parking situation was atrocious that we've already talked about. You got to have help either. You got to have PD help or you gotta have, um, even if you got a hire someone. Yeah. So I did read that all of the parking attendants air quotes were volunteers. 

In fact, I think most of the people that were there were volunteers. Which the reason because of that, they didn't want to hire anybody. I have not mentioned this yet, which is one of the things. One of the reasons why I wanted to go to it so much, just because a lot of . The money was supposed to go to hunter syndrome research. 

And I thought that was a really good cause. And I want it to be a part of that. And so most of the staff, um, from what I understand were volunteers. And they did that to save money, so they didn't have to take money out of there. Donation, I guess. Which is.  That's commendable. Commendable. Which is something that you always want to strive for. But there's other non-profits or even there's other businesses that will give you a  kind donation where, you know, they're going to show up and do work, and then they're going to count it as a donation and they get a tax break board and everything else. Yeah. So there's a whole lot more incidents. You have to hire someone for safety concerns, totally worth it because it was, it was held at the Komal county fair.  They're fairgrounds, which is right beside the Guadalupe river. Um, right off common street. And I'm looking at an aerial view right now, and there's no way. I'm fitting.  There's no way I'm fitting 5,000 cars. In this area and you're talking about 20,000 people. Yeah, there's no way that's fitting in this parking area. 

I read so many comments of people saying they parked like a mile or two away. We were driving out and I was like, they're walking. Yeah. And the F like the further we kept going into town. Cars parked all. We're still walking past us and I'm like, oh my gosh, these people are still walking to the event. 

And you're like, no, there's no way. And I'm like, babe, they're still walking to the event.  

And so, number one, you got to get parking under control. There's so many other ways that you can do it. You can park in huge parking. Lots are at other events, centers and bus people over. That's super simple, super easy, and it keeps everything flowing. And it doesn't congest and congeal. Cause once that happens, it goes haywire and you're going to start losing people. Number two, the layout of your vendors was atrocious.  Like Misty already said.  Your food vendors were the furthest away from seating areas. 

You've got to put the food vendors closer to the seating areas. And you got to take that big glob of people. And it is what it is. I'm not saying anything negative about it, but. A vast majority of the people that showed up later. And I imagine that stayed there at the longest. Were those people that were looking for some type of an adult beverage. You had places for people to do that? 

That was totally fine. Everything was good. But I don't know if. , where you put them in where the main flow of people walking around. Was just not in the best area, take those people, put them off to the side somewhere, make it where those lines can be 100, 150 deep, because if you don't.  They're going to be standing in the. The owl way. Or the walking path of your normal, Walker's going through the area. 

So you got to move those alcoholic beverages over. , People were walking in and they were like, yeah, pickle shots. Like there were yelling. They were super excited because of, I don't know something with pickle shots.  And so.  If you know that, you know, you're selling tickets and it's starting to reach up to that 10, 20,000. And you have those adult beverages. And you want to centralize  those adult beverages. That's totally cool. But you got to move them people off to the side where their lines can get long

because that area by far was the most congested area. Because that's where everyone was waiting for their drinks.  And , you had a bunch of food vendors  that you had kind of semi circled around it. That it was near impossible because people were coming through with strollers. And with baskets and there was no where to walk. 

Now on the other side of the park, it was all open. Because the normal flow was walking. But people waiting in line and standing.  Especially in that one area was way too many people. Yeah, the way they had it set up was the line of people. Went into the flow of traffic, which was the only way you could go to get around the vendors on that side. Which is why we created our own little path in between two vendors, because there was no way of getting around it. Yeah. 

So, I don't know if they were going for some type of cool little look, but if they would have taken those vendors and put them at the end of the other vendors,  Where it was open. That it probably would have. All that could have broken up a whole lot better. And would've been way more smooth going. I think their idea was they wanted to keep. Um, the alcohol close to the live music.  Um, which again, it just, this, the entire setup just did not make sense to me. 

I've seen so many different festivals and events. And it just did not make sense to me. Well, even if they wanted to keep it  close to the, the live music that was over there, they could have pushed it back closer to that born. Kind of out of the wind. . It would've pushed. Him. 150 feet, 200 feet back just out of the walking. Just out of the walking path. Because that's where they put there.  They're dispensing truck was almost in the walking path. 

Um, another thing that I saw that Misty's already talked about is there was three entrances.  So, which is totally cool because there was one that came from the parking area and then the two main streets that actually go through. The fairground. Uh, the head entrances there. I would suggest that narrowing that down to two. You only need two entrances. 

It's a hole. Now have one for number to see exit. Or for those specific people that are wanting to leave, you can, you can have a third one about doing it that way. But the more entrances you have, the more people start congregating around those. And it also makes it just.  It is congested. Everything can justice. 

We just made a word congest. This.  

By doing that. So.  Limit how many openings you have allow people to come in? Those two entrances. And then.  Porta Johns.  In my opinion, this is the biggest thing, depending on what your event is or how long that you plan to have it there. , They planned an all day event.  With 12 porta Johns.  I, I think isn't there like so many years supposed to have per person or for so many people you're supposed to have a Porter, John. Someone did the math and there should have been like, 

a couple of hundred porta Johns there to accommodate the amount of people that were there. 

So there's a different ways of looking at it. So you can either look at it where. If you go by the international building standards. Then.  So many occupants, you have to have a bathroom. Or . You have to have so many stalls per.  The amount of occupancies that you have.

And what I found actually works best, especially for these, because you're not going to have people there. You know, Kind of a come and go. It's not like you're locking people into a concert for the next three hours.  Is.  One for every 100 to 150 people. Usually works out really well. So if you're looking at.  20,000. People. There should have been at least 25 porta, Johns.  Which, if you look at the line that we saw there, even at the end with about 80 people with three. If you put 15 there. Now that line is, is moving along. And now that line isn't going to be there as long. 

 And it's one of those things where you had enough vendors.  And you ha you still had space for even more vendors. That. 

 They just need to kind of broaden their eyes a little bit more with the space that they have.  Yeah, I really, the space wasn't that big.  I guess for the amount of people that were there. My biggest suggestion would be one either make this a two day event instead of a one day event.  Or to, um, regulate yourselves. I'm pretty sure for legal reasons. 

You're only supposed to have so many people want a space to begin with. I can almost guarantee you that there was three to four times the amount of people that should have fit in there. Um,  Me personally, I bought our tickets like a month in advance online and paid like $15 a ticket. And then, um, they advertised on Facebook, you know, Get your tickets. 

We're only selling so many at the gate. We will sell out. But I don't, I don't know.  

I don't know if that's the case because, um,  

At the gate, the tickets were only $10, so they were cheaper. We should've just waited till we got there. It was taped a little bit of money. And then I heard that. Um, they were letting people in completely free at one point. So I'm having all those different prices for the same experiences. That's also crazy to me, but if you're just letting people in free, how are you regulating?  Ticket cells like. I don't know there, there definitely.  Definitely wasn't some thought process put into that as, as much as there should have been.  And  I don't want to speak for them, but from my own personal experiences, I do believe that this was something.  Especially there. They're there first year here.  That they got an overwhelming response and they didn't know how to handle it.  But then you limit your ticket sells like every other event we've ever been to. 

There's a certain number of tickets that you sell and then you stop selling at that point. True, but you also have to look at it from another standpoint is the more people you turn away, the less likely they are to come back now, granted. Yes, I've got their tickets early.  It's early.  Then they'll learn. 

I do also think that it could have been very . Beneficial for the vendors for the event coordinators and for the city to have done it in two days instead of just one. 

And there's so many other different aspects that we're not a hundred percent. You know, in the know.  We don't have the main guy's contact information of who put this on or whose idea this was, or the emails that they had back and forth,  with the city and other things. This is just our personal opinion, looking at it. That you know, I I'll even I'll even go this far. Um, Pickle festival people. 

If you need some ideas or you want to, um, Get a free consultation or whatever. Look me up. All right. I will have a unbiased conversation with you about. You know how you can better deal with this situation. Yeah, I, I love the idea. I love the concept. I think doing it for hunter syndrome, you know, the research and the foundation is extremely commendable. However, the execution definitely. Definitely needs some work. 

I don't want to make it sound like, Hey, we've never had a bad event before. But we've done enough events through so many different variations from 1520 people to hundreds of people. That you know, We.  We kind of know where we falter at and.  How to best plan and try to get things done.  

And , it's always comes down to.  The public perspective. In the first 10 minutes. They're at your event.  Right. And I can't say our first 10 minutes was great.  No.  I mean the very first one of turning in a I'm getting stopped by a.  Uh, A teenager. Uh, valet.  This person has to be like 15 or 16 years old, who asked me if I had tickets. 

And I said, yes. And he said, okay. And they let me through. I literally followed the car that was in front of me. To find a parking spot. And I am going to talk about the parking because , it's a huge pet peeve of mine.  That whenever we were leaving, Misty was not joking. Four to five. Cars deep. Yes. And whenever we turned in, like there's telephone poles every once in a while. 

So there should be like four or five open lanes where people can get in and out by the time we left, there was one.  You can only get in and out of our little parking area by one spot.  And it was only barely car with yeah, there was a truck that was trying to get through that. I was. I'm surprised , he didn't scrape paint. Or break some windows. And at the same time, we're trying to get out with a large group of people, because I don't think anybody stayed for a large amount of time, like for a long period of time. 

I think everyone that went that day. 

Maybe stay three hours and that's being generous. But as a large group of us were leaving, a large group was trying to come in. And so that one car with lane lane, air quotes. I'm doing a lot of air quotes today that we're going out of people are trying to come in through and we're like, no, you can't. 

We want to leave. And they would just like, stop. Waiting for us to go out so that they could turn in, but there is an endless amount of cars behind us trying to leave and an endless amount of cars coming in.  It was just insane. 

We weren't even at the main entrance. No, the main entrance was actually off of common street. Ruther we're south east avenue comes in. I think that was the entrance. Yes. I thought that was the main interest, just because of sheer volume of people that were right there and made me think, okay, this has to be the main entrance. If that was a side entrance, I don't even want to imagine what the main entrance was like. 

I think they wanted it to be the main entrance, but as soon as all the parking spaces were taken up by 11.  It no longer became the main interest because everyone started parking on every street in the surrounding area.  Every parking space. Every mom and pop grocery store. Um, Even going all the way down to Spud ranch, which is.  

Six blocks down the road. 

People were still parking.  That you were like, oh no, they're not going down to, it was that first lot that we came down on common street and I mean, people were just parking everywhere, anywhere that they could find. On a side street, that's where they were parking and they were all going to one central location. 

They're on Southeast avenue.  Aye.  I think that anybody. Who's going to put on a festival. I, I urge you actually.  To look at what you have to work with and don't oversell what you can accommodate as far as parking, as far as vendors set up, as far as people inside of your event. Do not sell more than what you can accommodate, even if you have to turn people away. 

That's just, that's just life nowadays. We should all be used to that by 2020 anyway, of how, since then, pretty much everything has been limited or has time slots or only so many people at a time. We should all be used to that by now. Anyway, it's been five years, but if you oversell an event like that, You're going to have way, way more negative feedback. Then you would have, if everyone who did get to attend. Had a great positive experience. Yeah. 

So, I mean, we could go on and on about the very detail, the nitty gritty of everything that needs to be fixed to make this a more successful event than it was. I mean, the top three are easy parking. Bathrooms. Personal space.  You fix those three things. Everything else falls into place. It's super easy. 

Usually don't have any issues, but we do at the end on a really good note, and I want to give a huge shout out to all the vendors. Food truckies  that stayed and.  And held this amazing event where this, this good calls. Who gave us great products. Great. It's worth our three hour trip and our crazy experience. I mean, it was super fun. 

All of them were, you know, cutting back and forth.  They all kind of came together. They were all kind of in their own little groups, as far as I think they had like. Six vendors that we're all kind of clumped together. And all of them were looking out for each other, like making sure canopies weren't blown away or things weren't falling off as the. The winds were coming through. 

So, um, huge shout out to them. And, and we will not break down every event we go to like this, we've been through several events since we started podcasting and we might have mentioned a few of them. But this one we really did want to, um, for two reasons, one, because it was unlike any. Festival. Experience we have ever had.  And so good or bad, it was, it was definitely a unique experience for us as far as festivals and events go. And two, it's been all over the local news because of.  The kind of crowds that it drew in and the responses and things that have had, , it's crazy. , if you just Google new Braunfels, pickle festival 2025, I promise you, you're going to find some interesting. Articles and stuff. It's pretty crazy. And so I wanted to, Hey, on our experience with the process and what we went through. Yeah. Because we've been, do. So many different festivals. Um, we've been to and still plan on going to many, many more.  

Yeah, this is just, well, even. One off the back of the next one, I still would have redone the experience. Oh, yeah. He came away with some great products that are sitting in our refrigerator right now that we're enjoying. I mean, we've been to  other things that we have done, um, that we've never broken down before, but this one.  

needed it. And it's, it's nothing against, uh, the great city. It's nothing against the people that, that put it on. It was just, there was a lot of things that just didn't happen. And because it didn't happen. It leaves a bad taste in people's mouth. And although. It was one of the worst events that we've ever been to as far as land planning and, and the, the whole going through the process.  We still had a great time with all the vendors that were there. Yeah, but we've talked about this before, especially in our  podcast, dealing with disappointment, we try to always have a great time. 

We try to always find the silver lining. And so that's just who we are. If you went to the new Braunfels, pickle festival, I think it's called in a pickle festival. And let us know how your experience was. I'd love to see every version out there in what you went through, stay with us because next week, We will get right back on track and you guys will get to hear all about Hilton head, South Carolina.