Busch Gardens Tampa Food & Wine Festival spring 2015

September 12, 2014, 9:28 PM

Busch Gardens Tampa has a new page on their website announcing a spring 2015 Food & Wine Festival. BG Virginia had a F&W Festival the last 2 years in the summer.

Do you think this new event will entice Orlando springtime snowbirds to travel to Tampa to experience this? I think it could be big since most of the spring training Major League Baseball teams are there and this seems like a great vacation event for those visitors.

Replies (2)

Edited: September 13, 2014, 11:03 AM

I think a wine event will attract more guests than a beer event, and international foods will attract more than barbque which the parks offers year round at their smokehouse restaurant. The big question that my friends are concern with involves the entertainment. This event isn't called: Food, Wine, and Bands. The entertainment is what my friends care most about. We love the concerts, especially the classic bands from the 60's to the 90's. Other than that it sounds great but we are waiting for more details and the list of entertainers. To attract more snowbirds they need to cater to the taste of the snowbirds who are mostly middle aged people or older. Thus I believe the wine and food will appeal to their taste buds, but will the entertainment appeal to them? As middle aged myself my friends like the older style music and not into music of recent years. I follow the real music series and have friends who come here year round for that music event. We have noticed no word about that event so far.

Edited: September 15, 2014, 8:40 AM

I was at BGT on Sunday to see the Jack Hanna animal show (funny intro) and thought about where the F&W booths will be. I noticed that there are typical unpleasant animal smells everywhere (to be expected) and thought a roaming set-up like BGW or Epcot F&W wouldn't work here. Combine this observation with the lack of news concerning the Real Music Series or Bands Brew & BBQ leads me to believe that the new F&W will be centered at Gwazi Plaza and Field and this will replace BBBBQ. Viva Musica was absent last year so I think that won't return either.

I'm hopeful that the Real Music Series will return for January to March and F&W will be March during baseball spring training.

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