Punch Bowl Festival

The hubby and I attended the Punch Bowl Festival a few weekends ago. We had a blast!

We purchased tickets online for $15 each. We bought early. I think the longer you wait to buy tickets before the event, the more the price increases. They had two event times – one in the morning at 11:30 and another in the evening at around 5:30. Chris and I went for the daytime option. I prefer day drinking over night drinking on a summer day!

The event was held at the PNE grounds. While we were walking up I was quite surprised at how many people were there. This is the only second year that this event has been put on so I didn’t realize how popular it was.

Once we walked through the entrance, we picked up our glasses. They were not as small as I pictured which was a nice surprise. The event is cashless. They use tokens. We pre-purchased some and got some extra at the event. They had a little tented area set up where you could buy tokens. My husband loved using tokens for some reason, lol. He said it reminded him of being a kid and trading in your tokens for cool stuff.

There are so, so, so many different stands set up. The alcohol offerings are a bit of everything – cocktails, beer, whisky, wine, etc. There is something for everyone and endless options! It was fun to walk around and pick what we wanted to try. Each sample varied from 1 to 3 tokens. You go to the stands you like and they fill your glass up with what you choose. They have water jugs at each station for you to rinse out your glass too.

You can also purchase food here (using tokens). They have food trucks, BBQ, and taco stands. We went with Two Rivers Meats BBQ and it was delicious. Other highlights here were the deejay playing music from the 2000s, games such as corn hole and jenga, and the live band. The vibes at this event were just great. People were friendly and having a good time. The people manning their stations were quite chatty too. It was great.

Things that I think could be improved – more seating and shade. The day we went was one of the hottest of the year and we definitely needed moments of shade, but it was pretty difficult to find. When we were eating, we couldn’t find seating, or the only seats that were empty were right in the beating hot sun. We ended up standing and eating in a tiny corner we found with a little bit of awning over us. I think if there was more shade, we would have stayed even longer. Being out there drinking in the heat with no shade had us tapping out a bit earlier.

Overall we had an amazing time and I’m looking forward to going again in the future!