What's newGrape Festival mixes tradition, innovation
At the close of last year’s Grape Festival and Harvest Fair, the event organizers decided to sit down for a brain-storming session.
Lodi Grape Festival General Manager Mark Armstrong eagerly awaits the start of the annual event. (Jennifer M. Howell/News-Sentinel)
And what emerged was a lot more than a new theme — “It’s a Jungle Out There” for this year’s festival.
Opting to disregard the old adage, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” Mark Armstrong, the Grape Festival’s general manager, decided it was time to sit sown with his colleagues and do some re-thinking.
“After last year’s festival, the staff and I just felt that the event had become a little stale. So we sat down and thought it through again. What needs tweaking? What needs to be left alone?” said Armstrong.
Some of the stuff stays popular, he said, so you just keep bringing those back.
“But, for instance we had noticed a big drop in visitors to the science hall. So, this year we’ve replaced it with a show called ‘Mad Science.’”
Mad Science is a highly interactive show that reveals a lot of the special effects secrets popular in today’s movies. The group running the event are building a sound stage, revamping the hall, and will host five shows a day.
“The show is being underwritten by Diede Construction. It’s very fast moving and professionally done,” said Armstrong.
“We also created another area in the center of the festival called Pier 413 (based on the street address of the Grape Festival Grounds) where we want to create a festive atmosphere like Pier 39 in San Francisco,” he said.
According to Armstrong, festival workers will raise a suspensions tent, and the area will have a lot of tables for guests to rest or visit or eat. As of this year, the Pier 413 area will flow with almost nonstop action including entertainment from street performers and the like as well as musical groups.
Another new twist the group came up with is to enhance the nature of the well-known “Grape Stomp.” In previous years, the grape stomp events were held in a side tent with fewer spectators than hoped for. Part of the reason, Armstrong said, was due to the fact that the stomp was held over a series of days throughout the festival.
A fun and popular event for participants, the festival organizers felt like giving the stomp a bit more glory. Now, the stomp will be held in the middle of the festival area, with the event running all day Saturday, Sept. 18, and featuring several category brackets.
The contests — including kids events, an open category event and championship stomp-offs — will all be held in the center of the grape festival. And, this year, there will even be open category sign-ups allowed on the day of the event — provided there are any space available, said Armstrong.
Previous festivals allowed only contestants who had pre-registered as stompers. Armstrong thinks this new step will also help attract both more contestants as well as spectators.
Regular visitors to the yearly festival also will notice some physical changes to the grounds as well. The entrance area has been re-vamped, doing away with the old, heavy, rod-iron gates that “used to take three people to turn to get out,” laughed Armstrong.
According to Brandy Haupt, a staff member with the Grape Festival and Harvest Fair, when it comes to the food booths, drink vendors and merchandise vendors, the old favorites always get a warm welcome-back.
Those include long running staples like Negrette Enterprise by Paz and Josie. Their specialty is Mexican food, and especially loved are their rolled tacos. The couple have the longest tenure of any of the vendors. Armstrong wasn’t even sure how they have been selling at the fair, but guessed that this may even be their 30th year at the festival.
However, Haupt said, that there will be some noticeable changes, too.
A well-known area favorite, Lockeford Sausages, has actually only been a vendor at one previous festival. Last year was their first ever. Haupt and Armstrong said that they had “the worst location in the entire place,” and yet they did extremely well. This year, the huge, mouth-watering, mammoth sausage sandwich vendor is being placed in a very prominent spot. And why not? After all, the festival does get a piece of their overall sales.
While the reptile exhibit will probably always return to the fair due to the constant crowd attendance to see the exhibit, one newcomer you may want to be on the lookout for is a certainly new and noticeable first: Camel rides.
If you’ve never experienced close contact with the burly humped-back beasts, both the young and the young at heart will have the chance to take rides on the camels, which will be presented by Double R Exotics.
So hang onto some of those napkins you get at the Lockeford Sausage stand. You might just need an extra one handy if those spitting camel stories are true.
