GILROY
– Combine four new driving lanes on U.S. 101, an extra-hyped
silver-anniversary celebration and the perpetual prayers to the
garlic gods for good weather, and organizers believe this year’s
25th Annual Gilroy Garlic Festival could be the largest ever.
GILROY – Combine four new driving lanes on U.S. 101, an extra-hyped silver-anniversary celebration and the perpetual prayers to the garlic gods for good weather, and organizers believe this year’s 25th Annual Gilroy Garlic Festival could be the largest ever.
So, even with a slumping economy, a nationwide cutback in vacation travel, high gas prices and below-average attendance numbers at last weekend’s 24th annual Mushroom Mardi Gras Festival in Morgan Hill, Gilroy garlic heads remain optimistic.
“There are a lot of things going on right now that you have to consider – especially with the economy – but I’d say the weather will still be our biggest (attendance) factor,” said Richard Nicholls, executive director of the Garlic Festival Association. “The Garlic Festival isn’t exactly a terrorist target, and although the economy is an issue, we draw two-thirds of our customers from the nine-county Bay Area, so we think people vacationing closer to home could actually play in our favor. Hopefully some of those people will say ‘forget Disneyland this year, and let’s drive down to the Garlic Festival.’ ”
Citing all of the above factors, the organizers of Gilroy’s grandest stage are adopting the philosophy of any party host worth his weight in garlic bulbs: It’s better to deal with leftovers than hungry guests.
Estimating that 125,000 to 130,000 garlic lovers will flock to the stinking rose mecca July 25, 26 and 27, Garlic Festival Committee members are set to order enough beef, scampi, sausage, bread, refreshments and, of course, garlic to fill the bellies of anyone who decides to make the trip to the internationally-famed event.
Last year, more than 125,000 made their way through the gates at Christmas Hill Park. The festival has averaged 121,500 paid customers during the past decade with no less than 120,000 visiting the giant feast and fiesta since 1996.
“You have to go into the weekend expecting the weather will be a perfect sunny 80 degrees and that traffic will be as smooth as can be,” said Jim Habing, speaking from his experience as the president of the 2000 Garlic Festival. “If there are less people, fine, but you always want to plan on the high side and be prepared for the huge crowd. You don’t want to run out of food again (like in 1991 when 136,000 people attended the event and most of the food was sold out by Sunday afternoon).”
Banking on its silver anniversary along with the recent breaking of the longtime U.S. 101 bottleneck between San Jose and Morgan Hill that deterred many Bay Area guests from heading to South County, Garlic Festival organizers have embarked on their most aggressive advertising campaign ever this year, Nicholls said.
New arrivals to this year’s festival such as an Oriental chicken stir fry dish, customized silver anniversary wine glasses and an updated edition of the popular first edition Garlic Festival cookbook will team with last year’s favorites such as the Herbie bobblehead doll and the extreme sports exhibition Got Milk? in an effort to attract crowds in excess of the 125,409 people who attended the three-day event in 2002, Nicholls said.
Throughout last year’s festival, those people consumed roughly 15,000 pepper steak sandwiches, 32,000 servings of garlic bread, 10,000 of mushrooms, 9,000 of bruschetta and 8,500 of scampi. Sales of sausage sandwiches and calamari each hovered in the 6,000 range.
Last year’s Garlic Festival raised $236,000 for 175 local non-profit groups, a number expected to be eclipsed by this year’s festival if attendance projections become reality.
“I work in San Jose, so I can say first-hand what a difference the new lanes on 101 will make in helping get people here,” said 2002 festival president Kurt Chacon. “But it’s hard to say if people will spend money once they get here.”
According to Chacon, the Garlic Festival has worked out a deal with food supplier Sysco Foods to ensure unopened perishable food items sold to the festival can be returned following the festival. Perishable leftovers will be donated to the Lord’s Table, and nonperishable goods are stored for future festivals.
“We’ve been improving our inventory practices every year as far as I know,” Chacon said. “I think by now they have a pretty good handle on what to expect.”
That’s why Garlic Festival organizers remain optimistic despite the fact that attendance at last weekend’s Mushroom Mardi Gras in Morgan Hill was 20 to 25 percent below projections, tallying only 30,000 visitors during the two-day event. Festival officials pointed to the economy, the recently heightened terror level and the cloudy weather in the northern Bay Area as reasons for the disappointing turnout.
Nicholls said although Gilroy and Morgan Hill sit less than 12 miles apart, their annual agricultural festivals do not share the same attendance fate.
“In the past there has not been consistent correlation between the mushroom festival attendance and the Garlic Festival,” he said. “For us it is business as usual this year, and all we can do is put our best foot forward and hope people come.”
Gas prices in the Bay Area currently cost about a quarter more per gallon for regular unleaded gasoline this year than during the Garlic Festival last year, according to the American Automobile Association of Northern California. And to offset the poor economy, ticket prices for the Garlic Festival will remain the same this year at $10 for adults and $5 for children and seniors; the Mushroom Mardi Gras Festival offered identical ticket prices.
“This festival wouldn’t have made it 25 years if the people planning it didn’t know what they were doing,” Habing said. “People love this weekend in Gilroy, and it’s a lot easier to get here (with the new 101 lanes). … There’s no reason not to expect big crowds.”
