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Permalink Reply by Michael Tierney on May 17, 2012 at 2:40pm

Prepare to be overwhelmed.  Big crowds, and awesomeness pulling you in all directions

Some exhibits (dark, loud Tesla coils, big flames) may be scary for them, but there are some very kid friendly areas.  Seek out the Bay Area Lego Users Group enormous Lego setup.  Look for the R2 Builders.  The Exploratorium usually has a big set-up of cool exhibits.  The Cupcake cars are always fun and are usually tooling around the Faire.

There is so much to see and do, I would suggest looking at the program beforehand and figure out what areas you definitely want to see, and spend any extra time randomly walking about.

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Permalink Reply by Kevin Clem on May 22, 2012 at 11:21am

That was amazing! But holy carp they need a bigger venue, even if just for crowd mitigation. 

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Permalink Reply by Michael Tierney on May 22, 2012 at 12:08pm

I don't know if they've released official numbers yet, but I had heard they were expecting 120,000 people.  We started going when attendance was 40-50k in the same space.  I thought it was especially crowded on Saturday.  A bigger venue (with less exhorbitant parking fees) would be great, but I don't know of anyplace in the Bay Area that could handle it.  They're victims of their own success, I think.

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Permalink Reply by Rob Roschewsk on May 22, 2012 at 9:21pm

I was thinking the same thing! I'm not from the neighborhood .... and that site seems REALLY big already ... there was 3 indoor halls that were mostly packed. The West Lot was pretty busy ... and overrun during coke-n-mentos shows ... My son and I would go to the South Lot when we needed some air ... steampunk when we needed to get out of the sun.

Oh yea ... and as much as I dislike it .... next year .... SUNSCREEN.

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