OC BBQ Festival

I did not enjoy my experience here. The parking + admission + food tickets are pretty pricey. The portions you get for the tickets are small. Much of the food i tried was underwhelming. I spent 20 minutes in line waiting to get in and only 40 minutes inside (i immediately got bored after i spent my tickets). I’ll rate this 4 stars instead of 1 – 2 since I recognize this is a fund raising event for a noble cause.

Third year as a certified KCBS judge for this event. Gets better every year and it helps raise funds for the families of terminally ill children.
Kelligh puts on a great event!

If I didn’t know this was a charity event I’d be there with bells on BUT knowing that I get to have fun AND help kids with cancer makes it a MUCH better day! Thank you to the people who work so hard to put on a great event AND help children!
I had a great time again this year and there was so much more to do! the evening was great-​where else can I eat and see Sugar Ray for $ 15!!! Awesome!
The car show was even bigger this year which was very cool and the bands playing all day was fun without being over whelming. Having 2 beer sections really helped the traffic flow too!
There’s tons of fun BBQ teams showing off their skills and making tasty treats-​Meat Incs ABTs are the bomb!
I’m looking forward to what happens next year!

Fun place!
Maybe a little overpriced, but good food nonetheless. 2 $ for one rib may be a little overboard.
Other then that too many booths to visit in one day and I tried to eat them all too.

I’ve watched the OC BBQ Festival grow over the last few years, and it’s been fun to participate — either as a visitor or as a judge. The competition has always drawn local teams from around the area, from 20 teams in its inception to a whopping 70 teams this year.
In years past, there was just the car show and a few vendors. For this year, they really increased the amount of entertainment and family fun activities. That’s probably part of the reason why the admission price was raised, but all of the proceeds go to charity.
If the event organizers are reading, I would suggest having some sort of an «early-​bird» admission price, starting at $ 10 and gradually raising the price as things get closer to the event. At a lower price point, you could bring in a lot more people through the gates, that’s for sure.

Went on Saturday 6÷9÷2012 with my wife and daughter. It’s pretty much amateur hour. Most of the BBQ from the booths were cold. Only one booth had hot BBQ. How is that even possible? Seems like people decided to try BBQ-​ing and enter a BBQ competition/​festival. Didn’t see a single team from outside of California. Pretty bad sign considering CA is not a hotbed of great BBQ. The Best In The West cook off in Sparks, NV blows this out of the water. It’s the difference of going to a major league game and a pee-​wee game. The only thing was the kids zone. Lots of inflatables and a petting zoo included in the price of admission. The fact that it’s also for a charity gives it a few points. Bottom line: don’t expect great BBQ but if want to spend a day with your kids and want to donate some money to a charity, its not too bad.

BBQ. Lots and lots of BBQ which isn’t a bad thing at all. Let’s just say when I left here, I just wanted to curl up and take a nap. I was in a BBQ induced coma. Thank god though it wasn’t too hot since I totally forgot a hat and sunscreen.
So it was $ 5 for parking, $ 30 for 2 tickets, and $ 20 for 10 tokens to share between me and my boyfriend. Yes it is not a cheap thing to do, but it was a lot of fun and worth it. I mean it is a fair, you can’t expect things to be cheap. You’re there for the experience! It was definitely enough food for us. A lot of BBQ ribs, pulled pork, sausages, and just yummy meat. There are also vendors that give out free samples too so make sure you look around for those. You should bring a water bottle or something to drink because it is expensive to buy drinks. The boyfriend and I just drank the free coconut water they were giving out.
It was a lot of fun and I’ve never tasted so much BBQ in my life. Some were a miss, and some I want to visit the actual restaurants. And OTHERS like that one sauce my boyfriend drowned his pulled pork in… I wanted to die it was so spicy. Like burn my tastebuds off spicy. He had a good laugh though.
You should go and check it out! Bring cash and enjoy a nice day at the fairgrounds. ⁴⁄₅

This is a really fun thing to do in the summer. It falls near my husband’s birthday every year so I’ve taken him the past 2 years and we both really enjoyed it. He’s from Missouri so he’s big on bbq. The bbq is really good, there is a lot of it, and it’s fun to walk around and try different stations. They had a pie station too, yum.
Minus a star because it’s pretty expensive as it is. Minus another star b/​c they got greedy this year + raised the ticket price, lame. (used to be $ 10)
$ 15 ticket entry x 2 = $ 30
$ 2.50 or 5 for $ 10 sample «tokens» x 2 = $ 20
I know it’s only $ 10 more than last year but hey, these days $ 10 is $ 10. That could have got us 5 sample tickets.
So about $ 50 for 2 people and we only get 5 samples each, that’s not a lot. It will fill you up somewhat b/​c you’re waiting so long in between eating but still. They should really give some incentive to purchasing the tickets online. Like a free sample ticket or a lower entry price. I think the year before they let you get in an hour early before everyone else.
But $ 50 for not even a full meal — I guess it’s all about the novelty of this event at this point. We’re passing this year. I’m so bummed, I want some pie. Guess we’d consider going again once we win the lottery or something & have $ 50+ cash to drop on a sample tasting event ;)
NOTE: bring your own drink/​water/​whatever in if you’re not drinking beer, you’ll get thirsty and water is like, $ 4 or something. and do a walk around first — some stations give better samples than others :)

Smoked meats and beer… sounds horrible.
Honestly last year was my second time at this event, and am planning on going again in June. It’s a good time! They typically have about 70ish BBQ teams, although some are very small, and don’t have the massive crowds.
I have noticed over that some BBQ teams wait until the BBQ judging prior to letting the public have any tastes.
My personal favorite is the «Slap Yo’ Daddy» BBQ team. I like how he competes with the big guys, with the smaller smokers that a typical weekend warrior, like myself, uses.
They also have a nice kids area which is a great distraction for them to run through. Last year, they had multiple jump houses, and a petting zoo which included most of the animals that were being smoked that day.
They also had many of the larger breweries in the beer tasting area, some smaller ones too, Evens Lager was a new company which I had seen for the first time here. Paired well with smoked meat… but most beers do.

too many weird looking people here!

This was a pretty fun event — not cheap, but fun. The ticket booths at the entrance were really disorganized and slow. We could not figure out why it was taking so long for each customer. Then, supervisor dude in pig hat started to sell admission tickets, cash only, on the side of the lines and that was awesome! So apparently the ticket booths were slow because of credit card transactions or just customer indecision about what to buy? We heard supervisor pig hat dude talking to his staff at the end of the days about ideas for next year on how to alleviate the congestion, so hopefully it will run more smoothly!
$ 10.00 admission just gets you in the door, then $ 10.00 for 5 BBQ tastes and $ 10.00 for 5 Beer tastes. The highlight for me was Three Men & A Smoker — they had delicious bacon wrapped meatballs and this super smokey corn soufflé! My other favorite was Que’n & Brew’n and their Moink Balls — also bacon wrapped meatballs! If there were any other bacon wrapped meatballs at that festival, they would have also been my favorite! I’m monotonous and boring, I know.
I felt bad for customers coming late in the day because the Beer area was totally depleted and out of samples. But there were still booths with BBQ! Definitely a fun time with live music and lots of happy tummies!

Pretty cool festival for BBQ lovers. Not sure I’m ever going to go again, but its cool to say I’ve been once at least. Some good bbq on hand. Definitely buy your tickets ahead of time. The ticket line was massive. Fun for about an hour. Good live music and the portions were pretty decent. $ 10 worth of tickets (5 samples) gets you pretty full if you chose wisely. Good beer and good food… no complaints.

This is my kinda place! Anything with the name BBQ is sure to lure me in.
I came here at around noon and it was not that packed until later on. In total, I stayed for 4 hours (because SOMEONE was late). I was sunburnt and have tan lines to prove it. I turned at least 5 shades darker. =/​
Anyhoo, overall the food was decent. The booths are especially busy when ribs are ready. Some booths gave free tastings while others require you to purchase a ticket. 10 tastings tickets was more than enough for 3 people. We traded the last two in for beer tickets (including the 5 extra that we bought)!
My fav BBQ: redneck tacos! What caught my eye was the big JACK DANIELS sign. I immediately thought of the guy from EPIC MEALTIME! The taco had some coleslaw at the bottom of the tortilla and generously stuffed with pulled pork. So goooood…
My fav BEER: Evans! Made from Mexico, I know. I don’t care; it went down smooth and paired perfectly with BBQ. The portions the girls gave were far from 4 oz. tastings… it was a full on drink! They might as well should have given me the bottle! I came back 3x to this booth. :)
Reminder: wear sunblock and something that doesn’t create ugly tan lines!

This was my second time attending this event! This year was great! Lots of free food handouts, delicious BBQ to sample and my kids spent hours in their kids area. I don’t know how any of you can Say you went home hungry. So much food and drinks. Yeah, the lines were long but it was well worth it! Great day and can’t wait till next year! To top it off all proceeds went to a great cause; helping terminally I’ll kids.

Good time here with the Lover of Sushi on Saturday. Came in on the Fair Dr. side. No signage directing you to the Festival take away 1 star. Dirt lot, booths to close together so by 1:00pm the lines were rediculous trying to get your samples. Take away 1 star. Food and Fun add 3 stars. So other than poorly planned traffic (people) flow this could have been a home run. We will be back next year though.

This place was awesome. We loved it and can’t wait to go again. YES it was expensive but it is for a good cause. We actually got so full that we had to trade in the bbq sampling tickets with beer sampling tickets.
Just remember some vendors are way more generous then others, when you a see a long line expect smaller sampling.
There were 3 of us and we use 1 ticket per booth and we shared everthing. This was way more worth it then each person get one sample, we get to sample more BBQ this way.
Kid zone was also free so that’s a plus.
Remember this is sampling only not full lunch but there are other vendors that sells lunch.
Bad thing is that it’s only open for 1 day. make it 2 days.

This review has been edited because I have tried the Orange location of Famous Dave’s and can no longer recommend them as great BBQ locally, although many of their other locations (Phoenix metro location & Buffalo, NY area) are excellent.
This was my first time attending the OC BBQ Festival and we will consider going back next year. As a die-​hard BBQ fan, it was hard to leave feeling completely satisfied as we only got a 1 ounce «taste» of each sample instead of a full meal, but it was a fun day. I think what I was most disappointed about was that only one booth actually served their pulled pork on a bun.
The good:
1. There was a ton of great BBQ on hand.
2. There was a small car show with some great looking cars. Loved the Thunderbird.
3. Proceeds, although we never determined how much (just gate fee or everything?) went towards charity.
4. Everyone in the booths were friendly, nice people.
The bad:
1. The only OC restaurant that had a booth (unless I missed them) was Famous Dave’s. We saw several caterers, but I REALLY wish some of these places would open physical locations. There were hundreds of people at this event… there’s obviously demand.
2. One booth gave you a chicken wing for a ticket. Seriously. A $ 2 chicken wing? Although other food samples were more realistic for the price, this is the greater problem with this event: when you pay $ 10 per person to get in, $ 10 for 5 food tickets, and movie theater prices for drinks, it quickly becomes unaffordable for your average family to leave full and happy.
3. Some booths had lines of 20 – 30 people. Their BBQ was probably good, but I didn’t have time to find out for many of them.
Tips:
1. Do a flyover of the front of a booth to see if what they have is what you want before you get in line.
2. Although there were some beer tents here giving 4 ounce pours for a $ 2 ticket, you’re better off attending the annual Beer Festival at Lake Irvine — more vendors, better selection, better beers.

OVERALL RATING = 8
Saturday, June 11^th.
Gates opened @ 11am.
All the BBQ Orange County has to offer in one place at the same time for all to sample. $ 10 will get you in and 5 sampling tickets. Additional tickets need to be purchased at designated booths. I don’t know how much the additional ones cost because we didn’t need it.
Some vendors are much better than others so I’d advise not to go crazy with your tickets the moment you get in. Going to the booths with longer lines is a safe bet.
I would also advise to walk around and hit up the ones that offer different samplings like deep fried nachos, bacon wrapped meatballs, and smoked peach cobbler (which was excellent by the way). I heard of a smoked brownie being offered somewhere but couldn’t find it.
There’s also some beer sampling which also requires a purchase of tickets. Alcatraz, BJ’s, SoCal Brewery, Sam Adams… I didn’t see anything special. Didn’t see Bootleggers or Bruery so I avoided it.
Bought a small cup of Sam Adams Summer Ale for $ 8. Tasted gross, but all the meats I was eating sure helped gulping it down. Large goes for $ 10, which might’ve been a better deal.
Live music and a large portion of the area dedicated to gigantic bouncing houses and arts&crafts for children to go berzerk at.
There are free parking areas and preferred parking areas for $ 5, which we paid for to get to the meats faster. Just make sure you’re parking near the actual festival and not the swap meet.
Don’t wear clothes you don’t plan on washing immediately after event.