Winterfest: victim of its own success
It’s been a week since I posted on Lowell’s Winterfest, and I’ve cooled off enough to write about my disastrous attempts to enjoy the festival this year. First off, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I had 8 p.m. tickets for the MRT last Friday night (The Missionary Position—timely and well worth the price of admission) so my visit to the Soup Bowl competition, which didn’t open until 7 p.m., was cutting it close—even for me. When I got there at 7:03 and saw the line of people snaking its way through the parking lot, I realized soup tasting wasn’t happening for me this year. Then Saturday night, my daughter and I waited in the cold rain for 40 minutes cramped into an entranceway with about 100 other folks trying to get into the Tsongas Arena for free skating (we had our own skates). After all that waiting, we left in frustration to find a restroom, only to return an hour later (when the line was down to 10 teenagers) to discover the doors were locked. No one from the arena would explain why the schedule indicated another hour of skating yet they had stopped letting people in despite repeated attempts to get them to speak with us at the door. In fairness overall, I have to say the fireworks display was outstanding, and my daughter enjoyed the indoor activities earlier on Saturday—especially making earrings with her dad. But for me, Winterfest 2008 was a cold downer—too many people and not well organized—at least in terms of the skating.