Pig Island

This review is for the 2014 event. This was my third time attending and I would rate them as follows:
Inaugural Event on Gov’ Island: 5 stars, amazing
2013 Event: 4 stars, slightly more crowded but still great
2014 Event: 1 star, badly organized and totally oversold
As others have mentioned, they sold way too many tickets and did not coordinate with the food and drink vendors. As a result the beer lines were 40 minutes long (in previous years you would wait less than 5 minutes at any time of the day) and the vendors were running out of food half way through.
To the organizers: It’s great that your event earned a stellar reputation but it’s your job to live up to it. I hope lessons were learned this year and that you exercise some restraint in ticket sales or perhaps do some better planning. My friends and I agreed not to attend for a fourth time due to the frustrating experience in 2014.

We ate a ton of tasty pork.
We drank a boatload of beer and cider.
My friend and I got there extra early by free water taxi and with our VIP passes had our own VIP time before everyone else by a full half hour to grab many drinks and fresh eats at a bunch of vendors. Check in was a breeze.
Used Ikea’s bathrooms and air conditioning as a break from the heat. Had some Swedish meatballs too. Winning!
Left right before 3pm because we were totally full and buzzed. Could not down any more beer or cider or pork products. It’s also a smart move to avoid the crowd all trying to leave at the same time. Jumped on the free Ikea shuttle to the subway and got home pretty quick.
We had an awesome time. Experienced festival goers know that the golden rule is to get there early and leave early. Hit up all the best stands first and to the back. Double fist those drinks so you stay hydrated and thoroughly buzzed. LMAO — So many people complaining and whining here. Oh well, I guess our experience far exceeded theirs.
Don’t hate because we’re ballers and had a better time than you!

This event was not hosted on Governors Island this year but anyway…
I don’t understand all of the negative reviews. My friend and I caught the 10:45AM water taxi, got to the park by 11, and were let in promptly. Lots of stations were still being setup when we arrived which was fine since it gave us the chance to walk around first. There was tons of food as well as beer, cider, and wine. Anyone complaining probably showed up at 4PM and well, that’s late. We left full as well as well-​hydrated and happy.

Okay — so full disclosure, my friend Ingrid S., won a pair of VIP tickets (courtesy of Unilocal!) to attend. The event was slated to be from 11:30 — 4:30pm and my intentions were to meet Ingrid at noon… noon became more like 2:20pm because slept over my alarm and there were no Manhattan bound trains coming from Queens which resulted in my having to go deeper into Queens to get out… only for the G train to decide in mid-​trip that it was going to go express and skip 4^th avenue thus making me go deeper into Brooklyn and switch platforms to go back. The only method of transportation that proved to be reliable was the B61 bus. GO BUS!
Anywhoo, I was still looking forward to 2 full hours of all I can eat and drink yummy oink oink style (please get my lame reference, my sense of humor is an acquired taste). Upon arrival I was told they had run out of wristbands but they could give me a paper ticket should anyone ask to see it. Mmmmkay. Sure, that’s fine — but I couldn’t help think that a true-​ly prepared event wouldn’t run out of something like wristbands if they were really on top of how many people they were expecting, how many tickets were sold and comped, etc. But this was only red flag number one…
After receiving my paper ticket I ran to join Ingrid on the beer line… the line was seriously like 20 – 30 minutes long and judging from some reviews written before mine, it could have been much worse…
Sixpoint Brewery apparently ran out of beer at 1:15pm…that’s pretty sad considering that the end time wasn’t until 3 hours and 15 minutes from when they ran out. I mean… ACK. I don’t know who to blame here… but another thing they ran out of was WATER. Last Saturday was easily one of the hottest, most humid days and I think it’s pretty irresponsible to run out of water when it’s an outdoor event, with no age limit, which boasts unlimited amounts of meat and booze.
The food vendors were all really nice folks who you could tell had a passion, not only for cooking and preparing meats, but also for quality customer service… and of course, PIGS! I enjoyed all the different varieties of pork from bacon, pulled pork, pig innards (kidding, I didn’t eat any of those — I mean… GROSS, I don’t do innards of any animal :-/​).
I heard that the food offerings were better earlier on in event, but for an event where the ticket value for a ticket is $ 65 – 80 a pop, food and booze offerings should be CONSISTENT throughout the entire event and the organization managing/​producing the event should partner closely with participants to ensure that they were bringing enough materials and thus creating an equal experience for everyone, regardless of what time they arrived.
The stand out vendor for me was EEEEEEEEASILY «Fleisher’s Meats». They were the very first sample I tried and the joy that my taste buds felt when I bit into their Red Hook «Hamchetta» (a deliciously thick cut ham with honey dijon & raclette cheese sandwich made on artisan ciabatta bread). I’m not even the biggest fan of ham and I’m super picky about honey dijon… and mustards in general, but having comfortably sampled every single vendor, «Fleisher’s Meats» was the clear winner for me.
In rating this event on Unilocal,I’m really in between 2 – 3 stars and would go for 2.5 if Unilocal allowed for halfsies, but I’m gonna go with 2 because even though the food was good and they had a lot of varieties — there could have been a greater option of liquids, a more diverse presence of breweries & wineries and considering that we got to experience the supposed «VIP» package ($ 80 value each ticket) there should have been some special sections, more workshop type/​educational/​speaker things and things should not have run out less than halfway through the event.
Events like Pig Island are fantastic as they support and create awareness for certain neighborhoods, independently owned restaurants/​brands/​manufacturing companies and can create some fantastic memories for consumers and vendors alike, but when they fail to hit the mark of what they claim the day will be like, it’s a turn off. Hopefully if I have the opportunity to check them out again next year, they will have fixed some of the hiccups experienced at this year’s event.

A great idea that was horribly (terribly, miserably, awfully) executed. I definitely did not get my money’s worth for the event. As noted by all the other reviewers, it took much too long to get into the event due to only one person with a scanner at the gate. The re-​checking of ID inside the venue was a real waste of time and added to the long lines. Why not just have different color wrist bands or limit the event to over 21?
The food was nice, but the layout of the location was awkward with very little room for lines to form around various vendor stalls in some cases. A large part of the grassy area for lounging was taken up by the massive beer line.
And speaking of beer, well, the word «fiasco» comes to mind. There is simply no excuse for not having multiple locations sufficient to handle the volume and for running out so early. Same is true if you are speaking of water. I brought some water in with me but was expecting the opportunity to refill as promised by the event promoters. Waiting in line really ruined this event for me. All I wanted was some nice beer to enjoy with the food. Not really too much to ask is it?
I would not attend this event in the future nor would I attend anything promoted by Food Karma Projects. They have a long list of past events so if they haven’t figured out the basics by now I don’t see much reason to give them a second chance.

I think that if I had paid for this event, I would be royally pissed off. However, thanks to the kind folks at Unilocal,I scored free tickets! I also showed up at 11:30am on the dot. If you came earlier, you were a winner, later, you were very very stupid.
Things that were a major fail: The check in process took way too long at the start. I think their online system went down at one point and caused a back up for people that got there on time to have to wait close to an hour to get inside. Second fail was on the alcohol distributors. There was only SixPoint, Singlecut, Brooklyn Brewery, Wine, and two different cider tables from the Hudson Valley. I lucked out with grabbing a beer at the beginning from Singlecut and just proceeded to make my way to the food tables. But about 20 minutes later it became impossible to get beer unless you wanted to wait in line for close to an hour. A line that wrapped around a field. I kid you not. Beer also ran out from SixPoint (which I never got a single can of because of said freakishly long lines) at about 1:15 — 1:30pm. Food vendors started to run out at around 3pm. Which sucks because my friend slept through her alarm and didn’t get here till around 2:30. The event was supposed to end at 4:30. Lastly, they ran out of water on one of the hottest days of the year. I passed out in the grass from sunstroke at one point, even though I had an umbrella, Unilocal sunglasses, and had barely drank any alcohol.
Now that I got the bad parts out of the way, let’s spring to the good parts! There was so much food! If you were smart like me, you grabbed a beer immediately, and made refills on white wine and/​or cider and plowed your way through all of the food vendors. I was able to conveniently make my way to almost every table because nearly every Pig Island ticket purchaser was adamant about getting a plastic cup of Brooklyn Brewery Ale. I heard at one point while hundreds were waiting in line all of the taps ran out and no one in line was aware of this. Lol. Sucks for them. Truly.
Favorites of the foods: Butter — Oh my gosh. Whoever doesn’t love Alex Guarnaschelli should be shot. They had a chorizo taco with watermelon and serrano chile sauce with an accompanying banana bread pudding topped with candied pecan bacon crumble. I freaking died and went to heaven. The best two items for the entire event for me. Seriously.
Other stand out items: Steve’s Key lime pies. I didn’t expect them to be there because it isn’t pork related. But I had always wanted to try them after hearing rave Unilocal reviews. The reviewers are right. It’s the best key lime pie I have ever had. I had second helpings. Fleisher’s Meats had food for the longest at the event and had a pretty tasty pork and cheese ham sandwich. Jimmy’s No. 43 and Randall’s great slow roast pork sliders. The Pig Guy — Had a super inventive egg roll stuffed with both pork, broccoli rabe, and provolone with a squirt of horseradish mayo and also had their version of a pork slider. Shout out to Ovelia’s because they’re in Astoria and so many of my friends live there now. Might have to check them out now. But they served up an insanely flavorful chunk of Kontosouvli (Greek style spit-​roasted Pork). It was very simple and plain, but the way the meat was cooked, made it stand out from the pack.
I even tried head cheese from somewhere at one point. It’s something. Something that my palate doesn’t particularly agree with but I can honestly now say I’ve had ground up pig head and organs. Watched some of the knife demonstrations on Porky. Listened to some of the live music. Made lots of line friends before Stephy finally arrived from her land of Queens. It was a good event but it needs some vast improvements or they need to sell WAY less tickets for the event in order to not have all of the vendors run out of their goods. I was thinking of seriously giving this 4 stars since I did eat so much food but at the same time if I spent $ 70 – 80 on the event and never got to try most of the alcohol vendors, I would be really upset.

This place was not ready for a crowd. 45 min wait to check in because the ticket scanner was down, no available water or water fountains as promised via info email, beer vendors have to check Id for every pour… LINES!!! Would not attend again.

I can understand why people are upset but my experience was a little different. We got there early enough to be close to the beginning of the line. We walked from the street entrance to the ferry entrance grabbing plates and beer as we moved and I think I got to try ¾ of the food that was offered and I definitely enjoyed the pig butchering demo. We had our own water that we carried around in small cooler in my backpack and overall had a pretty good time.
It was miserably hot and sticky with hardly any places to cool off but what are you gonna do. The lines got pretty ridiculous about an hour in when more and more people kept showing up. That’s when we decided to walk over to IKEA to cool off and use the bathroom so I didn’t try the porta-​potty but I imagine they were probably pretty nasty. When we came back the lines started relaxing a little so we hit up a couple of vendors we liked and switched to wine since the beer lines were stupid long.
I think the setup could’ve been better. There could’ve been more drink vendors and it would’ve worked better if there was a drink vendor next to every food vendor. I think that would have cut the lines by a lot so if any organizers are reading this… just sayin.
I don’t think i got my moneys worth but it was pretty close. I sit here on my couch writing this still very full from all the food and rocking my Unilocal sunglasses. I’ll probably do this again next year, just hope the weather is less brutal.

First of all the event said everyone is a VIP. Someone explain how they sold VIP tickets to certain people. The scanners to get in broke. Some people paid the first day the tickets went on sale and had to wait 45mins? This event was clearly not ready for the amount of people who showed up. One of the sponsors sold out of drinks at 1:15pm. Not to mention some of the food vendors were done by 2:30pm
The food honestly was not all the great. I was very displeased with most of the food I ate. There was a pulled pork burger that was about the only thing that was good. I seriously don’t know why this event was $ 56 (early bird price). Some of the food wasn’t cooked correctly.
The beer line is a 40min wait. Horrible. Did I mention water was not being given out? The event should have been called heatstroke island. Most of the people here looked miserable because it was just too damn hot out. If your a wine drinker there were hardly any lines. They mention cyder seriously where was it? There was one dumb booth of it.
Thankfully in the front of the event we were given energy drinks from monster or else we would have fainted. We literally got two cups of beer. And where were the souvenir cups we were promised on the event page? Such bs. If you are able to get a refund do it.
:;;BATHROOM ALERT:;;;;
POTERPOTTY THATS ALL I NEED TO SAY…100 DEGREE WEATHER… HEAT BOX
Finally, I just know for next time I will not come to this event. The two stars go to the live band. Thankfully we had a blanket with us. But if anyone goes next year. Bring your blanket and an umbrella. By the time it was around 3:45 half the vendors left and one tent had beer.

2013 pig island in red hook Brooklyn. Man did it SUCK! New Yorkers don’t know PIG. This event needs people who really know how to grill pork. Long lines, limited food, beer OK but beverages needed help desperately! Limited entertainment did not reflect the diverse music tastes of the area. Leave the BBQ to the Texans. However, there were a few hits.

When it comes to the swine, I find myself unable to resist. The timing couldn’t have been better. The weather was much cooler than the last Gov’n Island event. All in all, there were only a hand full of items that really stood out – but for the most part, it was a great time to spend outdoors on a picnic blanket with friends to spend an afternoon.