That said, Saturday’s program sounded a lot better, so crowds were probably more plentiful. Plus, it’s not an NFL Sunday in a town where football is king!

They changed the procedure for general admission tickets this year and it was a nice improvement. Instead of queuing before the start of the main kitchen show, you could walk up to a ticket booth and request assigned seating for free. You could upgrade your tickets for a charge, as well. However, we walked out of Michael Symon’s demo and asked about tickets for Robert Irvine’s show. (My friend and I also decided to attend at the last minute because we learned that Chef Sawyer was involved!) We were handed 2 assigned seat locations and were free to walk around until just before show time. The horrid, metal General Admission bleachers were also replaced with very comfortable stadium seats. In fact, the stadium seats were so comfy that we opted not to move down to the floor when it was offered for free during the Cleveland Culinary Challenge.

This year, we kind of plotted out our Food Show trip based on the schedule — knowing that Main Kitchen stuff would be overly crowded, I decided to stick with the alternative stages.

I hadn’t actually seen Symon demo before so he was really the only one I wanted to see in the Main Kitchen theatre. And when I saw the crowds weren’t too bad and found out Sawyer would be at the Robert Irvine session on Sunday, we decided at the last second to go to that.

After this year’s experience, I definitely advise for future Fabulous Food Shows to take a look at the full program a couple days in advance if they post it on their website (like they did this year) and heavily consider the demos on the side stages.

I learned about soubise at the Garlic Fest. I checked out the mac & cheese recipe you’ll be making – looks awesome!! If you ever want me to come cook with you – just say the word. I love it!

It looks like you had a great time, great photos!

I thought all of the shows on Sunday were poorly attended when compared to past years. But, that final show was especially empty. I didn’t even realize it was on the schedule until a volunteer mentioned it. I don’t recall seeing it online in advance.

I was incredibly disappointed with the show this year. However, it sounds like Saturday’s line-up was a lot better than Sunday’s. I couldn’t attend on Saturday, but would have enjoyed seeing Michael Ruhlman, Chris Hodgson and Brian Doyle. I would also have enjoyed seeing Robert Irvine cook, as I know very little about his food philosophy.

Michael Symon’s tidbits about pot roast pierogies and “Which part of the animal would you rather kiss?” were fantastic! A lot of his material is repeated from year to year, but that portion was new to me and very entertaining. It’s always a pleasure to watch Chef Symon cook and engage the audience; the man is a natural on stage!