I attended the Dragon Boat Festival for the first time on Saturday. While we were only there for about 2.5 hours, I feel like I can give a relatively complete review on what I saw while I saw there. Here goes.....
Parking: I started with this because, well, it's the first thing you have to do. This was, perhaps, my only complaint. Parking was atrocious. Now I'd like to make a few points about it, though. 1-After we got in, we found out we could have gone to Sports Authority Field and shuttled in. I feel like this could have been better advertised but have a feeling that this would have made the parking situation more doable. 2-It's a festival and parking is expected to be wonky. 3-We went on a Saturday afternoon when, I'm guessing, there was a peak number of people. With that said, I think there should be handicapped options available (or better advertised if they already are). I'm betting if we'd have gotten there first thing in the morning, there would have been more available parking.
Staff: All of the staff that we encountered were great. It was watched over carefully by the police and security. There was a first aid tent that was located in a convenient location. No complaints, for sure.
Food/Drink: I have to say, this was one of the widest varieties I've seen at an event recently. They passed on some of the traditional carnival/fair food to have a more complete array of appetizing food. There were still funnel cakes and berry kabobs but there was also chicken teriyaki and wobbly coconut drinks. The food is still "fair" prices, though, so bring your pocketbook...and bring cash.
Vendors: I was actually pretty impressed with the level of merchandise they had. Instead of it just being tent after tent of Mary Kay, essential oils sold from home, and other work from home businesses, there were many hand made and unique options. There was a massage tent as well as some tents from Denver's Fox channel and Comedy 103.5.
Entertainment: We got to watch only a portion of the entertainment but it was definitely very neat. The martial arts demonstrations were incredible. The dragon "dances" (as I don't know what they're called) were absolutely amazing to watch. It was a tiny step into a beautiful culture.
Favorites.....
Disciples of Funk were one of my favorites. They were energetic and had so much pop in their step. As a dancer, myself, I love to watch performances and their creativity and funk were enough to get everyone's attention. We were able to watch their performance of dances through the 80s and 90s. The neatest part was that they would show the dances (for those that didn't know how) and encouraged people to join in! Here is a link to their facebook page: Disciples of Funk
My other favorite was the AARP lip sync/karaoke tent. We stood outside this tent over and over singing along with "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Shake it Off", "Let it Go" and other memorable tunes. It was a fun and goofy way to entertain a crowd!
Recommendations: Come early for good parking. Bring cash as most of the vendors don't accept credit cards (at least the ones we visited). Sunscreen, Sunscreen, Sunscreen! (I can't stress this enough with the Denver sun and hot weather) Either bring a parasol/umbrella or find shade regularly and STAY HYDRATED! Have fun!
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