The 25th annual Mint Hill Madness festival was held this weekend, and it was quite an improvement over years past. Held at Mint Hill Park on Fairview, the event has seen dramatic growth recently – as has just about every event in the area. It’s hard to imagine that these things can just keep growing and growing like they are, but the Madness actually has room to grow, which is nice.
This area offers a few things that alternatives, such as the recent Festival in the Park, do not. Notably, since the park is just off 485, access is a breeze. Even on Saturday morning right after the parade, which is arguably the busiest time at the event and the traffic the heaviest, it wasn’t bad. Contrast this to Saturday afternoon near Freedom Park for the Festival in the Park – not the heaviest time, but it was definitely not a good time, traffic-wise.
Furthermore, the level of traffic overall just isn’t as heavy. Perhaps people just don’t come to the event, and quite frankly, that’s okay by me because it translates to a more enjoyable experience.
It’s not as if there aren’t a lot of people there or that there is nothing to do – there is plenty, and unlike at Freedom Park, there is actually parking galore (though they do request a small donation, it’s good for the entire weekend). Admission is free to come into the event, so it’s a worthy tradeoff – and you don’t have to walk half a mile even if you luck into a good parking place near the entrance (speaking of the Festival in the Park again).
Once you’re there, you have typical park amenities such as a playground – which our kids probably like more than the rest of the festival – and because the crowd isn’t as packed as other festivals, they can actually enjoy them. On the other side of the playground, you get into the displays proper, and unlike the last festival (which I’ll stop naming now), you aren’t crammed into a bottleneck on entering. Though you do get right into the food court, it spreads out enough that you can actually walk without feeling trampled.
Our good friends from Big Guy’s Pizza were there with their catering trailer (though they didn’t have the monster slices, as they wouldn’t fit in the warming oven), as were a number of typical food vendors. Nothing spectacular here, but what was nice was that a lot of the food was actually placed off to the side of the main walking trail – a tip that can be learned from a lot of other festivals – get the people who are eating out of the walking path!
The vendors themselves varied quite a bit, and reminded me more of a home show than a lot of other events. There were some arts and crafts, but there were also a large number of home products, pet products and even some recruiters from companies and the army showed up too. All in all, I found it to be a much more interesting presentation.
Not to be outdone, the kid’s zone was massive – a number of inflatable play areas and quite a few motorized rides took up a large section of the hill, and I could be wrong, but I think it was larger than any of the other festivals I’ve seen recently, save perhaps the county fairs.
On Saturday, the MG club was out in full force, and a dog show shared the fenced-in area, which meant that dogs were seen aplenty – including at least one in a tutu. One thing I found interesting is that dogs weren’t welcome at Freedom Park for the “other” recent event, even though they normally are. Just one more reason that I enjoyed this one much more. I think next year we might skip that one entirely – all in all, Mint Hill Madness was a lot better.
Did you go? What did you think? We missed Matthews Alive this year, but generally it’s very crowded, so I think this is probably our favorite festival of the fall season – at least recently. Thoughts?