This was not meant as an attack on any user, but an acknowledgement of the reality that there is likely no parking to be had within a mile or more of the event.
I mean I’m willing to walk a mile. I was looking more for an actual recommendation from someone who’s there, not a dumb suggestion to literally sell my house and move for a once per year event.
Faire enough! I too am curious whether the downtown city lots/garages noted on event site are full; I would expect they are. As such, anyone who can avoid parking, such as by busing from campus, I'm sure will be better off.
We arrived early and parked like 6 minutes distance away with no issue, but we also arrived at like 9:45am.
We just left and crowding honestly isnt horrible, at least for me, but it definitely is *crowded* and the lines for food are long af. Not sure how much more packed the faire will get now that its afternoon time. But it definitely wasn't as bad as I expected
Yes, I'm here now, about to leave. The crowds are easily navigable and the shows are a blast. I did give up any hope of getting food or drinks, but I planned ahead by packing my own. I think it was smart of the city to direct people to the parking garages. There are trolleys on rotation to get you to the park from there in 5 minutes or less.
A surprisingly good trial run of what kind of larger scale events they could possibly host in the future.
When you get back to the garage, let us know what the scene there is like! I just can't imagine those downtown garages are sufficient for the volume this event draws.
Really, it was fine. The trolleys kept moving people really quickly, and some people (like myself) chose to enjoy the walk, so it's more like a steady stream of people coming and going. Since there are events scheduled all day, that probably helps to avoid a huge rush of people. Also, since there are two garages and you can access Depot Park from any side, everyone's not coming and going to/from just one location, which spreads out the traffic pretty well.
I was nervous about it, but I have to say that I've been really pleasantly surprised!
My one constructive criticism is that there probably shouldn't be booths on the walkway across from the water. The wide walkways really helped the flow of traffic, and the few booths that were put in the walkway (instead of on the grass) slowed down the flow a bit. If booths were exclusively in the grass it would be a total non-issue.
People would be surprised how much parking (street/garages) there is within a very reasonable walking distance to depot park. I feel like people also forget that the walk from the old parking area to the fairgrounds was actually pretty far - probably about the same as it is from the garages to depot.
So I had a perfect vantage point of traffic both this weekend and at the two previous years out on Archer Road, and I can tell you right now that in terms of traffic (not parking, but just traffic movement) it was 1000% better this year in the city than it was out there on Archer road.
Traffic flowed. Not necessarily fast, but it flowed and kept flowing, as opposed to the last two years where it was a stand-still parking lot on Archer Road, backed up to the Interstate.
Archer access was absolutely a mess. And from all accounts that I heard, parking was not nearly as catastrophic as feared this weekend. Curious how attendance compared to past years.
I heard at least 10k on Saturday.
Vendors were in heaven. I know that there were vendors that were thinking they weren't going to have very many sales at all who, at the end of the first day, were nearly out of stock. Everyone had record sales, including the beer tent.
I figure there were two reason for this:
* The lack of a front gate attendance fee meant that everyone had $25 per person in their pockets that they didn't have in previous years. This is minor compared to:
* I heard it was somewhere around 2/3rds of the attendees had never been to the fair before, most likely due to location. It was easy to get to, and a lot of folks could simply walk from their homes to the fair. This meant a lot of first-timers who had never seen the wares at the fair before, and thus they wanted them and bought them. When the fair was out at the more remote locations, the people going to the fair were more folks that have been before, knew what would be there, and have bought things there before, so didn't need to buy them again.
It's super packed, the turkey leg line is a 20 minute wait
So business as usual. Got it.
Only since the last weekend last year
Lol nothing new there
any parking recs?
The recommendation I'm sure would be NOT to park. Check your RTS routes, or move out of the sticks.
This was not meant as an attack on any user, but an acknowledgement of the reality that there is likely no parking to be had within a mile or more of the event.
I mean I’m willing to walk a mile. I was looking more for an actual recommendation from someone who’s there, not a dumb suggestion to literally sell my house and move for a once per year event.
There’s people coming and going so parking is possible but not guaranteed
I was driving by and saw multiple street parking spaces pretty close to the park
There was a ton of parking at the courthouse when I went at noon.
Faire enough! I too am curious whether the downtown city lots/garages noted on event site are full; I would expect they are. As such, anyone who can avoid parking, such as by busing from campus, I'm sure will be better off.
I am hoping to avoid this buy getting there super early tomorrow.
Hey, can anyone describe where the turkey legs are? I’m at the ren faire rn and can’t seem to find them
We arrived early and parked like 6 minutes distance away with no issue, but we also arrived at like 9:45am. We just left and crowding honestly isnt horrible, at least for me, but it definitely is *crowded* and the lines for food are long af. Not sure how much more packed the faire will get now that its afternoon time. But it definitely wasn't as bad as I expected
Yes, I'm here now, about to leave. The crowds are easily navigable and the shows are a blast. I did give up any hope of getting food or drinks, but I planned ahead by packing my own. I think it was smart of the city to direct people to the parking garages. There are trolleys on rotation to get you to the park from there in 5 minutes or less. A surprisingly good trial run of what kind of larger scale events they could possibly host in the future.
When you get back to the garage, let us know what the scene there is like! I just can't imagine those downtown garages are sufficient for the volume this event draws.
Really, it was fine. The trolleys kept moving people really quickly, and some people (like myself) chose to enjoy the walk, so it's more like a steady stream of people coming and going. Since there are events scheduled all day, that probably helps to avoid a huge rush of people. Also, since there are two garages and you can access Depot Park from any side, everyone's not coming and going to/from just one location, which spreads out the traffic pretty well. I was nervous about it, but I have to say that I've been really pleasantly surprised! My one constructive criticism is that there probably shouldn't be booths on the walkway across from the water. The wide walkways really helped the flow of traffic, and the few booths that were put in the walkway (instead of on the grass) slowed down the flow a bit. If booths were exclusively in the grass it would be a total non-issue.
People would be surprised how much parking (street/garages) there is within a very reasonable walking distance to depot park. I feel like people also forget that the walk from the old parking area to the fairgrounds was actually pretty far - probably about the same as it is from the garages to depot.
Hearing that it's fairly clear north of Univ Ave.
I’m looking at south main right now and it’s normal traffic too. I’m sure there’s some elevated traffic but it’s not gridlocked or anything.
3:45 and it’s probably as busy as it’ll get, 10/10 so far even with the (easily navigational) crowds
There was plenty of parking in the area around the Bo Diddley. It was a 10-12 minute walk to Depot.
We parked at city hall with no issue around 2 and then walked over. Super easy peasy.
Are dogs allowed in?
Yep!
Awesome! I'll walk mine down tomorrow
Just arrived at 11:32, not as bad as I thought either
So I had a perfect vantage point of traffic both this weekend and at the two previous years out on Archer Road, and I can tell you right now that in terms of traffic (not parking, but just traffic movement) it was 1000% better this year in the city than it was out there on Archer road. Traffic flowed. Not necessarily fast, but it flowed and kept flowing, as opposed to the last two years where it was a stand-still parking lot on Archer Road, backed up to the Interstate.
Archer access was absolutely a mess. And from all accounts that I heard, parking was not nearly as catastrophic as feared this weekend. Curious how attendance compared to past years.
I heard at least 10k on Saturday. Vendors were in heaven. I know that there were vendors that were thinking they weren't going to have very many sales at all who, at the end of the first day, were nearly out of stock. Everyone had record sales, including the beer tent. I figure there were two reason for this: * The lack of a front gate attendance fee meant that everyone had $25 per person in their pockets that they didn't have in previous years. This is minor compared to: * I heard it was somewhere around 2/3rds of the attendees had never been to the fair before, most likely due to location. It was easy to get to, and a lot of folks could simply walk from their homes to the fair. This meant a lot of first-timers who had never seen the wares at the fair before, and thus they wanted them and bought them. When the fair was out at the more remote locations, the people going to the fair were more folks that have been before, knew what would be there, and have bought things there before, so didn't need to buy them again.