Garlic Festival XXVII, which takes place Friday, Saturday and Sunday, will bring the tried and true crowd-pleasers of Gourmet Alley's peppersteak, calamari and garlic bread; Garlic City Mercantile's Herbie bobblehead dolls, T-shirts and wine glasses; and a mix of music, activities and even more food. It also will bring some new features, to showcase the festival's famous food and keep the throngs happy.

With a crowd of 120,000 locals and visitors once again expected to fill Christmas Hill Park, 2005 Garlic Festival President Jennifer Speno is readying for a busy week.

"It's really our crunch time," Speno said recently. "The volunteers are coming together, the committees are finalizing details. It's really a very busy time for us."

The Garlic Festival Association committee chairs have been meeting once a week since June, and things are progressing more each day, Speno said. Mercantile products have been shipped and are ready for the festival shelves.

"Our boardroom looks like a warehouse, with all the boxes for Mercantile," Speno said.

Christmas Hill Park and the ranch site are already prepped with some fencing. Volunteers have started moving the festival into the park on and officially took over the grounds Monday.

Speno is keeping an eye on the one factor that weighs most heavily on attendance levels: the weather.

"I hope to maintain (attendance levels,)" she said. "I hope that the heat cools down this year, but that's the one thing we can't plan."

Regardless of the temperatures, festival-goers will find more shade this year, partly because a popular exhibition will not return.

The Got Milk? skateboarding, rollerblading and bicycling exhibition was only scheduled for a four-year run, which ended last year, Speno said.

In its place next to Gourmet Alley will be a large tent to provide a shaded eating spot on the ranch side. Other cool areas will be found throughout the park, as the vendor who last year set up family-sized umbrellas will be back.

One constant at the festival for the last 20 years will be changed this year.

Ticket prices are increasing, with adults paying $12 and children paying $6. A $2 discount off the general admission price can be obtained by purchasing Pepsi products to receive a coupon.

Inside the Garlic Festival, food is always the star of the show. Now, visitors can see how their favorite Gourmet Alley dishes, from penne pesto con pasta - which will be back with a revamped recipe - to calamari are prepared at a cooking demonstration stage set up near the alley.

Bleachers will be set up to accommodate spectators. Also at the alley, the Garlic Festival Web cam will be set up to stream live images across cyberspace. The cam will be in a more visitor-friendly place so people can capture images of their friends and family.

New local vendors have joined in the food show outside the alley, with It's a Grind, Hawaii'z Island Grill, Maui Tacos and Happy Dog Pizza hosting booths.

Aside from the food, there will be music, arts and crafts, and children's entertainment for all to enjoy.

A mariachi band will wander the park grounds, palate cleansers will ready folks for their next garlicky bite, and children can enjoy painting their own figurines in a painting garden.

Herbie the bobblehead will make his fourth festival appearance, donning a T-shirt with the winning poster design. But he'll also be bigger and better than ever: 12-foot Herbie replicas are going to greet people as they enter the festival gates.

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