There’s been a little grumbling that the Slow Food Nation event being held here in SF over Labor Day weekend is too pricey. True, there’s the $2500 Patron’s Package and the $500 dinner with Thomas Keller and Alice Waters. Even the $65 admissions ticket to the Taste Pavilions is a bit over the top for some.
But there are many free and reduced cost Slow Food Nation events. For more information, including an opportunity to win two free seats at Deborah Madison’s table at Greens on Saturday, August 30, read on.
The browsing is free at the Civic Center Marketplace, as well as the Soap Box, a small outdoor venue for story tellers and farmers, poets, urban gardeners, chefs, musicians and others. Buy a little something to eat from Slow on the Go (which promises to be affordable), fill your reusable water bottle with free, filtered tap water and settle in for the show. Schedules will be posted shortly. In between acts, wander around the amazing urban Victory Garden.
Most Slow Arts events are free, as well as the Food For Thought Film Festival. Also free are the Slow Hikes which will take you on tours of many Bay Area green spaces and agricultural lands but you must reserve a ticket in advance.
The Youth Food Movement events are free of charge or by donation and the San Francisco Public Library is hosting free films and speakers.
Discounted tickets to the popular Taste Pavilions are available from Whole Foods Market.
If all this seems too much to coordinate, here's a helpful itinerary to navigate Slow Food Nation on a budget
Finally, Culinate is giving away two free tickets to the Slow Food Nation benefit dinner for MALT at Greens Restaurant on Saturday August, 30. MALT is the first land trust in the United States to focus on preserving farmland and has protected over 40,500 acres of family farms and ranches from other forms of development in Marin County. Winners will be seated at Deborah Madison’s table. And, oh! did I mention I’ll be there, too?
Tickets to the speaking events are very reasonable, and the student rates are even more so. Additionally, they have a discount program that you can apply to in oder to get very reduced price tickets (I think the reduction is from $65 to $25 - that's a great discount!) to the tasting pavilions.
Although they have pricey patron packages, I found that the organizers have made very commendable and effective efforts to make the conference activities accessible. I hope that people who are interested in attending are willing to make the effort to do some research on the website and not be swayed by the complainers. I'll be attending 4 lecture presentations and going to the tasting pavillion for about $100. That's a screaming deal in my book.
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I have not read the other posts about this event, but I have been grumbling to myself a lot.
How do you bill a talk about the 'growing world food crisis' and then charge people $65 to taste food for 1/2 a day?
There are serious issues around the quantity and quality of food available to a large % of people in the bay area, especially in the last six months. The cost of most events is not accessible to attract non-foodie people and to really build a base for growing a slow, local, and sustainable food movement that is also socially just.
view Robbybird's profile