Columbia International Festival

This was a super-fun festival, though it was incredibly hot this year. I think they usually hold it earlier in the year. One building (with AC) has a bazaar with booths from all the participating countries/representatives with examples of their art or photos, or video, whatever they can pull together. I got my name written in Chinese at one. At the end of the "path" there was a section for shopping all sorts of international goods. In the barn/other building, half was food vendors - ukranian, pakistani, Ghanian, Latin, French - all sorts of food, usually sold out of casserole pans - nothing fancy! Everything I had was good, it was just so hot to heat hot food in a hot room. In the back of the barn was a stage with dancing. There were back-to-back performances and some awards, all moved along by two very capable MCs. It was hot, and I really only stayed for lunch, but I wish I could have stayed to watch all the dances, they were so good. The parade of nations was really great - make sure you see that.

What a awesome experience. There was different from from different places around the world. Items were available for purchase. They even had a are to learn about all the different countries . Simply amazing !

The CIF was improved geographically since previous years, but still needs some better positioning of countries. Space seems better utilized but a second stage is needed. A couple negatives are;; that some of our volunteers in costume and wearing wrist bands had to pay for parking each day. A VERY bad distraction was the African drum ensemble that assaulted our ears for FAR TOO LONG. The office was also disturbed and had to keep the door closed....many complains were heard as the sound reverbs off the roof and down the aisle and makes it very difficult to carry on a conversation in the booths. I really felt sorry for those booths in the front rows.. We had to turn our national music off .....3d row...as it could not be heard . The theme this year was Mandarin speaking counties, so why was African Drum ensemble allowed to set up stage up front on the theme counties and drown everyone out? THAT IS WHY WE HAVE A STAGE!!!!. Parental control is lacking.; Sunday at breakdown, kids were running and throwing a ball directly in the path to the back door where everyone was carrying artifacts and display items to the cars. As one of our volunteers was carrying a box, a child reached into the box and removed a small item,....when the volunteer corrected him his mother yelled : you don't speak to my child like that". Parents MUST control their children. Four years ago I was told that during the parade I was not allowed to play music.....one single woodwind instrument with the Israel flag...BUT every year one group has an accordion and drums blasting the entire time.......why the discrimination? It is hoped that some of these issues will be addressed. Generally it was a good time and everyone came out exhausted, and maybe the kids visiting on Friday learned something.

It started off a little rough. The line was too long. There was no direction. I stood in the line for 10 minutes before someone said there was a different line for online tickets. I was better than a lady I met in the online line. She got all the way to the entrance and had to get out. But once inside everything was great! Food was high but whats not nowadays.

It was fun to walk around and see all the booths. The food was very good as well. The crowd was a lot and it was very hard to navigate through at times. If you easily get overstimulated, I would not recommend coming. The dances were very cool to watch, but the speaker was way to loud in places. Fun to go once, but I probably won’t go back.

Great experience learning about other countries and trying food from all around the world.

First time attending it was fun. The performances were good and the food was amazing. Masks were required in the building, which was a good practice for COVID. Felt like a safe way to have the festival while not requiring outdoors. Will be back next year.

Gr8 experience of different, countries,cultures, foods and People made some gr8 connections!