Boston Pizza Festival Met With Overwhelming Crowds

The inaugural Boston Pizza Festival was underway this past weekend, July 8th – 9th. Thousands of people attended the event over the course of the two weekend days. There were over 20 pizza vendors charging only $2 a slice. Along with pizza, there were shows and performances that lasted throughout the day. The event had a huge public turnout, and became a victim of its own success with the long lines dampening the fun for some.

The line to get in was so long that it reached all the way around down Cambridge Street. When I made my way over to City Hall Plaza, I found the huge line, shown in the photos below, full of hungry festival goers. I had not expected such a long wait and had to skip this festival! Some waited nearly an hour to get in. There were two lines; one for people with tickets, and one for people who needed to buy tickets. The two strands eventually became one enormously long line.

For those who could not wait in such a long line for the festival (such as myself!) it was disappointing. Possibly due to the amount of publicity it has received online and through its Facebook event and on The Boston Globe which published several articles leading up to the festival.

On the Facebook event, it said over 16 thousand people attended. And if that number wasn’t large enough, 81 thousand people said they were interested in the event. While those numbers are not necessarily indicative as to how many people actually attended, it definitely showed there was a lot of buzz surrounding the festival.

Some complained that the festival’s vendors were shut down too early and patrons took to the the festival’s Facebook Event to weigh in. The festival was set to be open from 12 PM – 10 PM for general admission and with VIPs allowed in at 11 AM. Perhaps a solution for next year would be time slotted tickets.

Having a pizza festival in Boston is no doubt a great idea, and organizers seem to want to work out the kinks for its second time around. Already thinking about next year, Organizer Raffaele Scalzi said, “We’re going to take all of City Hall Plaza next year. Not just the front area. We’ll do the whole thing.”