The 2016 2nd annual Adventureland Oktoberfest “Music and Food Festival” has concluded. It may take me awhile to compose my thoughts and post a proper write up about this day, but I wanted to get a quick summary out first.
The first event last year was an amazing first event. The park had nice matching banner signs on all the food booths and added a number of speciality drink tents to the park. They had done light decorations (pumpkins) around the Main Street, Bavari and Boulevard sections of the park they used for the event. There were free games to play in the lawns and lanes, and a number of speciality pay-to-play games added (keg bowling, Hamm’s speed ball toss, etc.). All the music last year was inside the Bier Garten tent. And while the day started out very sparse, by the evening it was wall-to-wall packed in that tent, and long lines at drink and food stands. I did not stay until closing, but it seemed the event had reached capacity limits for various locations that were open.
For 2016, the park took what they learned and expanded to pretty much the entire park (except Dragon Island and Outlaw Gulch). They even made use of the River Rapids “island” as a smoker’s section with it’s own beer stand (in the gift shop building). The Dragon Island bridge contained a cheap beer stand at the very end, with a $4 “whatever they had” drink and a chance to feed the fishes one last time this year.
There were tons of extra drink stands — most double sided so they could serve twice as many — and additional taps added to the Iowa Beer & Wine Shop. They turned many things in to bars — the Storm Chaser gift shop, for example. They even made Sheriff Sam’s Saloon a whiskey bar! The ICEE Mix-It-Up now sold you alcohol to spike your ICEE. The Main Street ice cream shop was doing spiked malts. Iowa Cafe’s chicken got moved to a food tend, and the two food lines in the building were turned in to a Mimosa Bar and a Bloody Mary Bar. There was free samples (a shot!) of SWELL Vodka (made in Cumming, Iowa) there too.
And the list goes on, and on, and on… Many games in County Fair were open, including “Inappropriate Age and Weight Guessing.” He guessed me at 51. Hmph.
And music… plenty of music…
There is far too much to describe in this short (already too long) summary, so check back late this week when I have time to do a full writeup with photos.
