Event

Mariachi Festival

On a cool, Saturday evening, a Mariachi Festival was held. I initially planned on staying for only an hour or two but ended up staying for much longer. Fortunately, it wasn’t as cold as I thought it’d be. Being under a tent, surrounded by many attendees was helpful to keep the cold weather at bay. Of course, there was the occasional breeze that would come through now and then but it was rare and bearable.

The Mariachi Festival actually started on time. I was pleasantly surprised as I didn’t think they would start on the dot. That said, it wasn’t like they didn’t have “delays” throughout performances. With audience members seeking extra performances from specific mariachi groups, performances were bound to not stick within their allotted time frames. Regardless, the performances in general were very good with me liking Las Catrinas the most.

Las Catrinas was an all female mariachi group that engaged with the audience well. Their voices were unbelievably amazing. Yes, these performances were live and you can tell when someone could sing. If you don’t want to take my word on how amazing their voices were at the Mariachi Festival, you can see for yourself in my video.

Mariachi Festival

Eventually, I decided I should call it a day since I didn’t like the idea of staying until the very end of the festival. (The festival was going to end at 11 pm!) But prior to calling it a day, I decided to take a look at what else the festival had to offer. There were several vendors present and when I say several, it was rather abysmal. They really should have had more vendors present. I saw some cute things for sale but I opted to not buy anything. With no price tag and lack of acknowledgement from the vendor(s), I didn’t even bother to inquire about an item I found to be unique and cute. (While I don’t think anyone would “change” prices on me, the likelihood of it happening is high when a price tag isn’t already made present and transparent to prospective customers.) The only vendor I came across with clear and transparent pricing while doing a brisk walk through was the vendor selling stickers. Anyway, in summation, these are the things I saw for sale: small plants, kawaii items (think Disney and Sanrio’s Kuromi), items reflecting Mexican culture, jewelry, stickers and an art station to keep children busy. Nice but for a festival, it would have been better with more vendors setting up shop here.

Mariachi Festival vendor

There was also a beer garden but I didn’t take notice of it and didn’t care for it, really. I’m assuming a few may have gotten drunk by the time the festival was nearing closing time…

Food trucks were also present. About four food trucks? They also had a T-Mobile booth amongst the food trucks which I found to be very bizarre. It honestly would have made more sense for them to set up the booth alongside the non-food vendors, closer to the event stage. Strange.

I ended up getting pupusas since I had been wanting to eat pupusas for some time now.

The event was nice with me liking Ballet Folklorico Mi Herencia and Las Catrinas the most. Also, as slightly nerving as it was to see so much security present, I realized there was a reason for it. It was a night event after all and night events require more security, supposedly. I was actually thankful of public security presence as I was walking to my car because it did feel a bit weird at night. I can’t imagine how much weirder it would have felt had I left at closing time.

**Click HERE to watch my video on the Mariachi Festival!**