Slice Of Columbus

I feel really awkward reviewing a charity event, so please don’t take this as mean-​spirited criticism – but rather, feedback to hopefully help one of my favorite events get back on track.
I’ve been coming to Slice Of Columbus for about 8 years, and I look forward to it every time. It has always been a relatively chill event: tasting pizza, drinking beer, listening to live music, and supporting a good cause (Nationwide Children’s Hospital). I was thrilled when it moved to the Commons, which has so much space for hosting events.
But this year was different. I’m not sure how to better say this, but this year was a disaster – IMO.
Here’s what went wrong:
–There were simply too many people. I could understand it better if this were an open event where you couldn’t predict the attendance, but this is a ticketed event. The organizers were in complete control and sold too many tickets.
–Because of the size of the event, the lines were disgusting. Ridiculously long. Almost every line had a 20 – 30 minute wait – for a teeny tiny slice of pizza!
–In addition to being the biggest crowd ever, SOC decided to heavily market this year’s event toward kids and families. Part of me is definitely a hater and loved how «adult» this event felt in the past, but I understand wanting to make it family-​friendly. Here’s the problem though… they already oversold the event, and then they attracted truckloads of families. Imagine the Commons completely slammed and hundreds of strollers pushing through the park. Everything moves a bit slower with kids (no hate, I swear), so this definitely slowed the lines.
–While we’re talking about kids, there were so many kid activities happening on the west side of the park. The pizza lines were so long that they kept running into all the kids!
–The number of attendees appeared to have doubled, but the number of pizza vendors did not. Yep, you guessed it – another factor in the miserably long lines.
–The vendors each brought several types of pizza, and with long lines filled with lots of kiddos – making a decision took longer than it should have.
–The beverage situation is crazy. At first glance, it looks like you need a ticket for any drink. But then you can magically buy water without one. It’s confusing.
This is another case of bigger not being better. Although more people means more money, sometimes you have to make sacrifices for the good of the event – and for the experience of the people attending. If it’s a great experience, they’ll come back next year. Or you can cram as many people into the event as possible and risk having many of them never return.