By Sara Suddes
Pinnacle staff writer
If there were a recipe for one of the best Gilroy Garlic
Festivals yet, the ingredients that went into this year’s may take
the cake.
Volunteers and visitors alike credited temperatures in the 80s,
a well-behaved crowd and beefed-up entertainment offerings as
elements that made for a great weekend. Having 32 years to polish
the product and iron out the kinks only helped matters, Festival
President Greg Bozzo said.
By Sara Suddes
Pinnacle staff writer
If there were a recipe for one of the best Gilroy Garlic Festivals yet, the ingredients that went into this year’s may take the cake.
Volunteers and visitors alike credited temperatures in the 80s, a well-behaved crowd and beefed-up entertainment offerings as elements that made for a great weekend. Having 32 years to polish the product and iron out the kinks only helped matters, Festival President Greg Bozzo said.
“I think this festival is bigger than garlic and it has to do with the people and the know how,” he said in a short celebratory speech to festival organizers after the last visitor left the park Sunday night. “That’s what’s unique to our festival that’s nowhere else in the world.”
Though many volunteers predicted a record-breaking year in terms of attendance, Festival President Greg Bozzo said a preliminary count showed that overall attendance numbers were down from last year, with 97,966 attendees compared to last year’s 108,000.
On the other hand, revenues were up about 7 percent from last year, Bozzo said.
“I’m not interested in the fact that we might be down,” he said after the last visitor had left the park. “I’m interested in the fact that we might be down but people are spending money. People were spending money like crazy.”
The combination of tacking an extra $5 onto the ticket price and the lackluster economy could be reasons for the dip in attendance, Bozzo said. But what the festival’s attendance may have lacked in quantity – relatively speaking – it made up for in quality and those that did come stayed and spent money, he said.
“I was extremely pleased,” Bozzo said. “I don’t mind if we’re trending toward a smaller crowd. As long as their spending the bucks, that’s the crowd we want.”
Advance ticket sales also increased this year, with 14,058 tickets purchased online or through Nob Hill and Raley’s stores, Executive Director Brian Bowe said. That compared to about 3,200 advance sales last year. People who bought tickets in advance were saved $2 off the price, and they did not have to wait in line, Bowe said.
As a result of the large number of advance ticket sales, Bowe said it was difficult to determine how many people came on each day. However, he estimated that twice as many people came Saturday than Friday, and fewer people came Sunday than Saturday.
Though Bowe said crowds Friday were fairly typical this year, the festival sold 2,100 “local” tickets to Gilroy residents, providing those attendees with a $5 discount as part of “Locals’ Day.” Bozzo said he expected to sell even more local tickets, but he figured that number did not account for Gilroyans who received senior or children’s discounts.
Though this year’s attendance numbers were slightly down, visitors came from near and far to experience the world-famous festival.
Joe and Ellie Cagnina have traveled to each of the 50 states and said they have never seen anything like what they experience every July in Gilroy.
“We wouldn’t miss the Garlic Festival for the world,” said Joe, who stood with his wife about 10 people deep in the line that formed before the gates opened Friday morning. “We stop everything.”
The couple – a retired school teacher and sales executive from Berkeley – pack up their Volkswagen camper every time the travel bug strikes and head wherever the wind blows them. But the Garlic Festival is a must see every year, they said.
“It’s the most well-organized local function we’ve ever seen,” Joe said looking around as volunteers put the last-minute touches on booths and food stations. “Every year, everything is consistently in the same place. This is really well done.”
While many attendees were longtime festival fans, newcomers from around the world also came to check out the garlic gaiety. Brendan Gallagher of Ireland, who was spending three weeks in California while visiting a friend in Marin, said his native country is far more known for its musical festivals than agricultural extravaganzas such as the Garlic Festival, making it a new experience.
“I didn’t see this stuff up in San Francisco,” he said with a grin.
Some of the first in line were Gerd and Richter Ute from Bremen, Germany. This year marked their seventh Garlic Festival.
The couple has never tried the garlic ice cream. They don’t plan to.
“I think it’s a joke,” said Richter Ute.
Davis residents Tawny and Mike Yaubrovich and their son Cole were a bit more daring.
“We make an annual pilgrimage for the yummiest event on earth,” said Mike Yaubrovich, as he was finishing a garlic ice cream cone from Gilroy Foods and Flavors.
As the temperature heated up, visitors turned to ice cream and iced libations to cool down.
“We are the perfect temperature this year,” said Leighan Perales, program director for the Gilroy Foundation, which runs a booth that sells wine coolers and mimosas. “Too hot and people are only drinking water. Too cold and they’re not drinking much of anything.”
Perales estimated sales at her booth were up 20 percent as compared to last year thanks to the Garlic Festival Association’s efforts to attract visitors to the park side of the festival, which is hosted every year at Christmas Hill Park. Amid new colorful yellow, orange and red flags, a large shade tent with picnic tables and the Cook-Off stage, the Gilroy Foundation’s booth had prime real estate, Perales said.
“The Festival tried to get more people to come to this side and it seems to be working,” she said Sunday afternoon, indicating the line that remained a constant six or so customers deep at their window. “The line never stops.”
About the same time Aguilar was welcoming vendors behind stage, critically acclaimed Bay Area chef Ryan Scott was accepting an oversized $5,000 check on-stage as the winner of this year’s Garlic Showdown. With sous chef Evan Rich, Scott, last year’s Showdown winner and a former contestant on Bravo’s Top Chef series, competed against three other celebrity chefs and came out on top with his “Perplexed Portobello.”
Using this year’s secret ingredient – mushrooms – Scott went vegetarian and let the secret ingredient shine, instead of using it to compliment a more traditional protein.
“This was the most I’ve ever sweat in my life,” Scott joked, with check in hand and a wide grin across his face. “I sat there and said ‘Oh my God, what are we going to do?'”
The charismatic chef and owner of a Ryan Scott 2 Go, a San Francisco catering company, reeled in the judges with a mushroom steak served with mushroom salsa verde and sauteed Yukon gold potatoes.
“It was our ode to steak,” Scott said.
Showdown judge Gene Sakahara, who is no stranger to the Cook-Off stage himself, said he picked Scott’s dish because the chef didn’t just feature the secret ingredient, he built the rest of the dish around it.
“One of the things (Scott) learned is that you have to use garlic but you have to emphasize the secret ingredient,” Sakahara said. “It was all delicious.”
Local ingredients and personalities drew visitors to the Cook-Off Stage around the clock. Crowds packed into the bleachers for the Great Garlic Cook-Off, the festival’s centerpiece cooking competition midday Saturday.
Margee Berry, of Trout Lake, Wash., took the grand prize of $1,000 with her Warm Weather Watermelon Crab Meat-Kissed South Seas Soup. Other garlicky dishes entered in the competition included Derick Thurman’s Crawfish Gravy with Roasted Garlic Waffles. In the classic festival spirit, the waffle batter used 12 cloves of garlic.
Behind the scenes in Gourmet Alley, volunteers cooks kept the festival running smoothly. Alexandrea Echalico, 17, wore orange dishwashing gloves and leaned over an industrial sink as she washed mushrooms.
Echalico’s favorite part of volunteering is spending time with friends and seeing the garlic man.
“I really like the guy wearing the garlic suit. I saw him this morning and I started laughing. Even though I’ve seen him before, I just get a kick out of it,” she said.
From what police reported, festival goers were too busy enjoying the shows on the Cook-Off stage, trying the food at Gourmet Alley or snapping their fingers to one of the many entertainment acts to act up too much.
Gilroy police made about 10 arrests, mostly related to adults supplying minors with alcohol, Friday, and five Saturday for fighting, violating probation and trespassing, police said. The Alcohol Beverage Control also made nine arrests for minors obtaining alcohol or adults helping minors obtain alcohol, Sgt. Wes Stanford said.
“The beer booths were doing a good job screening people, but there’s only so much you can do,” he said.
In addition, a minor was arrested for possessing a spring-loaded knife and a man was arrested on a felony warrant, Sgt. Joseph Deras said.
About 20 to 25 people also were ejected from the festival for various violations, including sneaking into the event and gang and probation issues, Stanford said.
But Sunday was calm and police made no arrests, Deras said, though they did have to remove a few revelers for minor violations, such as not wearing shirts or bringing in outside food or drink.
“Today’s been real slow,” Deras said. “It’s not like any other Festival Sunday we’ve had.”
Emergency calls for service were also down from last year with 17 on Friday, 28 on Saturday and about a dozen Sunday, said Randy Wong, chairman of emergency services. Typically, his crew receives about 50 calls for service on the Saturday of the festival, Wong said. The majority of calls this year were for twisted ankles and heat exhaustion, he said.
“We have a good crowd, great weather,” Wong said. “It’s been a really cool Garlic Festival.”
For videos of the Gilroy Garlic Festival, visit www.gilroydispatch.com.
