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Austin Food & Wine Festival passes now on sale, plus new details on the alliance
Are you ready for a taco cook-off, cereal milk ice cream and a deluge of foodies in Austin?
Tickets — and by that, I mean passes — for the Austin Food & Wine Festival, April 27-29, went on sale today on the festival’s website, and a $250 or $850 pass is the only way you’ll be able to get in on the Andrew Zimmern, Gail Simmons, Jonathan Waxman and Masaharu Morimoto action when they come to town in a few months.
The new festival is a pretty big change from years past, but I have a feeling that they won’t have a hard time selling passes, especially to out-of-town foodies looking for a non-SXSW excuse to come to Austin before the triple digit weather sets in.
A quick update on the Austin Food & Wine Alliance, the beneficiary of the festival that plans to give the money back to the community in the form of grants to culinary innovators:
At a meeting last week, I found out a couple of things of note about the alliance, which will also host a number of fundraiser events on its own throughout the year, starting with a Live Fire event on April 26. First, the board hopes to start taking grant applications sometime this summer, and alliance president Cathy Cochran-Lewis said she hopes that the grants will at least be in the neighborhood of $5,000 each. Second, just like any of the other food nonprofits in Austin, the Food & Wine Alliance is happy to be the beneficiary of the money you or your organization raise at your supper club/bake sale/salsa competition.
Now that you’ve had some time to process the news about the festival, what do you think of the changes from its predecessor, the Hill Country Wine and Food Festival? If you plan on going, whom are you most excited to see?
Permalink | Comments (11) | Post your comment Categories: Playing with your food
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By The Dude
January 24, 2012 12:56 PM | Link to this
Way to price out the locals who have supported the event for the last 25 years.
By Local
January 24, 2012 4:58 PM | Link to this
I’ve been the past few years, but won’t be able to go this year since the price is so high. :(
By atx
January 25, 2012 8:11 AM | Link to this
This is an Austin festival only in that Austinites will have the opportunity to work at the event by serving and cleaning up after the 1%’ers who will come in for the festival. seriously though, I wonder if there will be single day tickets later, like C3 does for ACL.
By Bird
January 25, 2012 11:56 AM | Link to this
What???!!! $250??? Have they lost their minds? And NO Sunday Faire tickets? Thanks for letting us enjoy it for as long as we did at The Salt Lick Pavillion for years and years where it was a closely guarded secret for a couple of thousand of us wine and foodies. $25 for early bird back then (and back then was only 3-4 years ago). I knew once it slipped the confines of Driftwood to money grubbing mainstream dirtbags it would cease to exhist. Cheers to the fond memories…
By Disapointed
January 25, 2012 11:57 AM | Link to this
What???!!! $250??? Have they lost their minds? And NO Sunday Faire tickets? Thanks for letting us enjoy it for as long as we did at The Salt Lick Pavillion for years and years where it was a closely guarded secret for a couple of thousand of us wine and foodies. $25 for early bird back then (and back then was only 3-4 years ago). I knew once it slipped the confines of Driftwood to money grubbing mainstream dirtbags it would cease to exhist. Cheers to the fond memories…
By Disapointed
January 25, 2012 11:57 AM | Link to this
What???!!! $250??? Have they lost their minds? And NO Sunday Faire tickets? Thanks for letting us enjoy it for as long as we did at The Salt Lick Pavillion for years and years where it was a closely guarded secret for a couple of thousand of us wine and foodies. $25 for early bird back then (and back then was only 3-4 years ago). I knew once it slipped the confines of Driftwood to money grubbing mainstream dirtbags it would cease to exhist. Cheers to the fond memories…
By Realistic
January 25, 2012 1:06 PM | Link to this
For $250 I can buy a lot good wine that is NOT from Texas. This town and the AAS is such a sell out. Way to promote food for the 1%, Addie.
By J
January 25, 2012 3:24 PM | Link to this
I’m annoyed they aren’t selling single event tickets. I’ve been a fan of Morimoto since my earliest exposure to culinary arts watching dubbed episodes of Iron Chef in the late 90s. I’d fork up $50 or so bucks for that. Why don’t they want my money?
By Carol
January 30, 2012 12:06 PM | Link to this
Now that Austin has become the playground for the rest of the country, Austinites can ill afford to play in it. What made our city so attractive to these events (Texas Hill Country Wine & Food Festival, SXSW, ACL Fest) in the first place was its eclectic populace—always open to good food, wine, and music; and a willingness to share it with each other and some others who (to paraphrase Lyle Lovett) might not be from Texas, but Texas welcomes them anyway. Thank you C3 for taking over Zilker Park and Auditorium shores, and pricing us out of own backyard.
By Carol
January 30, 2012 12:08 PM | Link to this
Now that Austin has become the playground for the rest of the country, Austinites can ill afford to play in it. What made our city so attractive to these events (Texas Hill Country Wine & Food Festival, SXSW, ACL Fest) in the first place was its eclectic populace—always open to good food, wine, and music; and a willingness to share it with each other and some others who (to paraphrase Lyle Lovett) might not be from Texas, but Texas welcomes them anyway. Thank you C3 for taking over Zilker Park and Auditorium shores, and pricing us out of our own backyard.
By Jerry
February 6, 2012 2:58 PM | Link to this
What a “shocking” surprise this is! Charging $250 or $800 to attend the event “we Austenite’s” all helped make into a yearly “must attend” attraction; not to mention guests who look forward to visiting Austin and attend what used to be a truly unique event for Austin. One has to wonder if the promoters this year have ever been to this event in the past. Remember 6 years ago or so when they tried to change the event on Town Lake? I recall that also was a disaster which ended up getting the promoters fired. Unfortunate for many visitors who were planning to fly or drive here to enjoy…. I do not know any of our friends who be attending due to price/schedule….some folks can only attend Sunday…Occupy Crowd needed to straighten these 1%er’s out!! What a loss for us Austenite’s! Very disappointing!