ottawa foodies

Anyone heading to Beau's Oktoberfest this weekend? www.beausoktoberfest.ca/

I'm volunbeering at the midway where proceeds go to Hidden Harvest. Saturday tickets are sold out, but still available for Friday. There will be some great beverages, food, and tunes!

I've gone every year since 2009 but have decided to skip it this year. The ticket prices have gone way up and you no longer get the fun green alpine hat or the soft pretzel included with your ticket. They've also eliminated the Sunday festival day which means more people trying to cram into the festival grounds over two days instead of three. Maybe I'm just getting old, but sloshing around in the ankle deep mud and standing in the long lines for beer last year was not a good time. Our car also got very stuck and had to be pushed out of the parking lot (a muddy field).
Hope everyone attending this year has a great time and much better weather!

Tickets haven't gone way up. They are $28 and include a beer plus the bands and other entertainment. If you feel that's expensive....

They've increased the ticket prices from previous years ($18 in 2012, $22 in 2013/2014) and your ticket now gets you less for your money. Maybe you don't define that as 'way' up, but it's up.

Agree, I've been going to the festival since 09 but skipping this year. Prices are up plus the drunkbus no longer leaves from Downtown and no free pretzel.

Hands down still the best festival in the region.

I might volunteer next year and get free passes.

We're continuing our perfect attendance record at Beau's Oktoberfest this year. We had to think about it as we also feel that costs have gone up quite a bit (hard to believe it was only $12 back in 2009...of course, it was a lot smaller). I don't mind them ditching the green hats at all, no pretzel is a bit of a downer. We did the beer and food pairing last year with Chef Bruce and really enjoyed it so we're doing that again. The music lineup was impressive last year; I'm not as familiar with the people playing this year but hope it will be as good. The one thing I've noticed is that the food has become a bit less adventurous over the years. There's more traditional Oktoberfest stuff now (schnitzel, sausages) whereas in the early years there seemed to be a wider variety. There is always something interesting and worthwhile though. The food and the Cask Days (the sampling of a wide variety of local and some non-local microbreweries) are probably the two things that bring us back.

I'm volunteering (1030-530) which gets free admission for the weekend and two nights free camping. It will be my first time, so I'm super excited. They are calling for 15mm of rain so I'll be bringing my rain boots! I'm really excited to see Tom Green's show as well. I think I'm one of the few who enjoyed his poorly rated movies and finds him hilarious.

14 beaus beers, 40+ cask beers, 28 restaurants, headliner bands, smaller bands on a second stage, games, Walter ostenak, comedians, huge charitable donations. This is one of the very few Ottawa-ish food events that I think is well-worth the price of admission. (If the Alpine hats are that important be among the first 2000 people to show up and you'll get one)