Fresno Famous

it's been another busy weekend in fresno, and i've done my best to hit as much of it as i can. it actually started thursday w/the taste and toast of the tower. friday night we checked out the vibe on kern street. today, it was the hootenanny @ yoshi now.

unfortunately, all three of these events suffered from the first blast of fresno heat this year. but, i think it was still possible to have a good time at them all.

as i sat enjoying a slice of pizza from milano over at the hootenanny today i compared that experience with the vibe. both had food vendors. both has booths set up. both had live music. but, i've got a feeling that someone spent a lot more money on the vibe. but, there wasn't that much of a difference in how it all went down.

i'm not trying to pick on either event, but neither really impressed me. and honestly, the vibe was the bigger let down of the two.

here's what i didn't really enjoy about the vibe:
-the vendors didn't seem to be organized in any particular order, rhyme or reason. they food vendors seemed scattered about, although it seemed that most were sort of near the middle of the event. poor cafe corazon was hidden down on the west end, seemingly away from everything else.
-you could tell that some businesses were local, but others didn't seem to have any connection to fresno or downtown. really, i have no idea where one of the bbq places was from, but their tent was a big texas flag.
-the tents line the street, and push everyone into the middle of the street. that's not bad, but it also hides the businesses that are on kern.
-i'm not sure who's fault it was, but the power kept going out, or they were having a ton of technical difficulties over where you could play rock band.
-no bike racks! i rode down to the vibe (and the hootenanny) and there wasn't any place to lock up a bike. well, no official place. we locked our bikes onto some building's fencing.

i did like the idea of the vibe. it's cool they're trying to draw people downtown in the evening. and, we picked up some vouchers for a future grizzlies game. i also was able to scope out the new downtown sushi spot, so hopefully i'll be able to eat there soon.

here's to hoping the next vibe goes better. it takes time to perfect these sort of things, and i'm sure that the street fairs i've been to elsewhere didn't go so smoothly the first two times.