The Austin Texas Chocolate Festival

Maybe its because I am a chocoholic but this was the most sad bordering pathetic event called a «chocolate festival». I entered the event place and there is a small table selling decorative jewelery– thought this was a chocolate festival? — and people just sitting around… I didn’t hear any conversations about chocolate going on. why weren’t they in the room tasting?
The last time I went a couple of years ago, my sample box was bursting and I enjoyed getting to meet the new chocolatiers in town. This was pitiful but maybe the hand writing was on the wall because I received an email saying space was available and the entrance tix was very discounted.
Let me elaborate a bit more:
The pieces of samples were so small they looked like large pieces of crumb. At one stand the cup contained (not joking) 3 chocolate chips. Yikes.
I was so shocked to see so little, people (and me) looking around and thinking what next to do nothing more to see I was finished in 20 minutes (why a 2-​hr time slot?) …so I counted…
5 tables: chocolatiers …
1 table wine tasting…
1 table for a Dove chocolate tasting party offered at your house…
1 brownie competition (four entries)…
1 table for the austin cake ball –since when does this equate for being chocolate from a chocolatier? …
1 table serving breakfast tacos (at a Chocolate festival? really?) and a chocolate drink called champurrado (served from a metal chafing dish) that was so watered down it was tasteless and looked like dirty sock water. (I have tasted this type of chocolate drink many times before and when well made it is flavorful and delicious).
On a positive note I saw my favorite chocolatier «Wiseman House” — their table was beautiful and had a few of their select products. They gave out a delicious nice size portions to sample their chocolate and hot chocolate (from a pump thermo), I bought a couple of their products
Note to organizers: A chocolate festival is to showcase local chocolatiers (existing and up’n’coming) and their chocolates.

I went to the Austin Chocolate Festival a few years ago and it was great — I came home with an entire box full of samples that would barely close. This year, when I found out I would be in Austin during the Chocolate Festival, I knew I had to go again. What a disappointment. Where there used to be enough vendors to fill up a large ballroom, this year there were only about a dozen. Not only that, but everyone was extremely stingy with the samples. The website notes that you are given 16 tickets for samples. Most vendors charged around two tickets for each sample, which were extremely small. For example, two tickets got me a quarter of a cake ball, or a slice of a truffle. The fondue cost us three tickets, and we were given the saddest strawberries and grapes I’ve ever seen. This was not worth the $ 20 we paid in admission. After a while, we didn’t even know what to do with our remaining tickets as there were not enough vendors to piqué our interest and, on principle, I REALLY didn’t want to give another two tickets for a tiny piece of chocolate. We were done after about 30 minutes and left with our sad boxes of chocolate.

I just returned from the Austin Chocolate Festival — and it was A-​OK. We purchased three adult tickets in advance online for today’s 12 – 2 session.
Everyone was very friendly and helpful, and the venue was nice. There were a lot of really great chocolatiers, (truffles, chocolate medallions, sipping chocolate, peppermint bark… everything) and some non-​chocolatiers, (popcorn, wine etc.) which was nice. They give you more than enough tickets, (16) to try everything there. We had enough tickets to go and get more of what we liked and take it home. They also provided take-​out boxes to put your samples in which was great. We got a free ACF bumper sticker as well.
This is a pretty small event, however, and for $ 21 per person, we felt that there was too little going on for the high charge. I’d really like to see this venue expand a lot and get bigger. We also didn’t participate in the contest because it looked like it was a mole contest and we just weren’t feeling it.
I definitely want to go again next year to see if the event has grown, and we did have a great time. So for now, three stars — a cool festival but there’s lots of room for improvement.

I went last year and was really disappointed. The space is small and there aren’t many vendors. You get a two-​hour time slot to attend, but after 30 minutes there isn’t much to do. The competition isn’t that interesting either. I wouldn’t go again.

My husband and I go to this event each year. It’s fantastic. Everyone is very friendly and helpful and this year (2011) it wasn’t super crowded in the Sunday morning time slot. We’ll definitely go back next year!

When I saw this event didn’t have any reviews it finally made me get on with it and sign up for a Unilocal account.
I biked over this morning and received $ 5 from www.oilisdumb.com’s table, which lowered the practical ticket price to about $ 17 for a 2 hour time block. Even setting aside the fact that the money goes to breast cancer research, $ 22 is a great value. Attendees receive 16 tickets for samples and a ticket for the competition, which added up to far more chocolate than I could eat in one morning.
There were a couple dozen vendors. Wiseman House came down from Glen Rose, which was awesome because their truffles are amazing but it’s a bit of a hike from Austin. My favorite new find was Austin Cake Ball, whose folks had an amazing pumpkin variety.
Two hours was more than enough time. I stayed a bit over an hour. Everyone was friendly and the vendors were very enthusiastic about explaining their backgrounds and goods. It didn’t feel nearly as crowded as I was expecting from the website’s ticket limit of 800 people per time block. I’m definitely planning to go back next year.