Well I made it to my first foodie con and I gotta say It was better than expected, not that I thought it was going to be bad - just that I thought it was going to be a lot more vendors selling their product and a lot less sampling, but nope! - there was a lot of sampling and freebies even for those who weren't VIP's.
For starters Milk & Eggs (dot com) was the very first stop out the elevator door and they loaded you up with all kinds of goodies and a big yellow milkandeggs.com reusable bag to carry all those freebies in. This was for all attendees not just VIP's and that bag came in so handy to carry all your other freebies from brands like Bai, Late July (chips) and Good Grains (granola).
When I wasn't stocking up on take home goodies I was filling my belly with samplings of drinks and sweets. This is where I wished they would've had a bit more, there wasn't enough savory dishes to sample besides the Del Real Foods booth who was serving their usual savory goodies like shredded beef and even pupusa samples, Of course there were the booths and food trucks selling food, but when you've paid an admission and a hefty $20.00 parking fee - spending more isn't really what event goers want, so I sampled what was available and kept on moving. Now for the selling portion - as a foodie I not only love to eat I also love to cook, so being introduced to some cool low cost gadgets would have been nice. I recently came back from a short weekend trip to San Francisco there was a festival and one of the booths was selling this crazy miracle peeler that was so incredible to peeled through a pineapple. When I saw this I had to immediately stop and buy one for myself; this I would have loved to see here, so keeping my fingers crossed for something like that next year.
If you splurged on the VIP tickets everything was open to you (except the food trucks and vendors selling their food of course) the alcohol sampling section was great they had all types of spirits and and even a Tito's Vodka Bloody Mary Bar to make that Sunday Funday vibe complete and if it all just got to be too much for you and you needed to sweat out that fun juice and rehydrate with a different kind of fun - the Silent Disco was just next to the drinks, where d.j.'s like Marcus Shadden had L.A. foodies busting moves.
Way on the other side of the Alcohol Sampling area was the VIP lounge were you were greeted with a cute little FoodieCon swag bags filled with full size freebies of those vendors out there on the Reef LA floors where the event was held. The VIP lounge is where they were keeping that oh so buena "Dulce Vida Tequila" that they didn't have in the alcohol sampling area and a bar. In here you were free to just take a break from the event sit in one of the lounge couches or inside the giant inflatable pimped out unicorn with your drink. there was also a special VIP lounge photo booth .
Speaking of photo booths the photo booths and opps where everywhere at Foodie Con. Here are just a few shots I got of myself and @esacomida
Please follow along on @imwhatsfordinner and @lailaromero21 for the fun stories of all the events I attend.