Do you love chocolate? Do you enjoy tasting different single-origin chocolates and bars with unusual inclusions? Do you have a high tolerance for crowds? Then the Northwest Chocolate Festival is the event for you.

Last year, I attended the festival with my friend Niffer. We had a good time and vowed to return. This year we brought along my partner Chris. The three of us were ready to try all of the chocolate and bring home a bounty of treats.

The Northwest Chocolate Festival is in its ninth year and it brings together local chocolatiers, chocolate makers from around the world, and chocolate enthusiasts. There’s vendors ready to sell supplies to the trade, and classes for education for both professionals and consumers, but mostly it’s about eating chocolate all day until you get chocolate wasted.

There were a few improvements over last year, namely that instead of having one “real food” vendor downstairs (which caused a huge human traffic jam), they had a selection of food trucks outside, and they had also added some seating to the show floor so there were places to stop, catch your bearings, and sit down to eat or drink.

It also seemed like this year there may have been more non-chocolate booths. Last year I remember a few craft booths, one jerky booth, and one olive oil and vinegar booth. There may have been others, but this year there were also some like, travel booths, and even (I kid you not) a window booth. Like windows for your house. Now I appreciate the diversity of having honey, jerky, and olive oil, because those are all things to appeal to the sort of gourmand who enjoys quality chocolate. But the other stuff makes it start to feel more like a street fair than a chocolate festival, and I hope we won’t see even more non-chocolate booths in the future.

Another thing I noticed is that there seemed to be less booths with truffles and fancy filled chocolates. I don’t know if this indicates a shift in the industry, a shift in who was invited to the event, or a shift in who even wanted to be part of the event.

That said, we still found a lot of things to get excited about. I was excited about camel milk chocolate from Dubai. Niffer was excited for roasted cacao nib brewing chocolate. Chris was excited for spicy chocolates. We enjoyed a break in the 21+ lounge where we each had a drink and looked out into the Puget Sound. We bought a lot of chocolate. We sipped samples from Miro Tea.

I’m sure to fully enjoy the experience we should have gone to some classes, but there was just so much chocolate. I think I would only be able to make time for classes if I went both days.

In addition to buying treats for ourselves, like these “cakes” (sort of like a cookie/cracker/shortbread hybrid) that will probably be part of our Thanksgiving feast, we found a few gifts for people in our lives, too. We actually bought less chocolate than I expected us to, possibly because of the crowds.

Let’s talk about those crowds…

To put it simply, the event was too crowded. It took us forever to get to parking because of the bottleneck getting into Smith Cove. Then we had to wait for a second shuttle, because there were so many people waiting for the first one. Then we had to wade through seas of people to get to chocolate. There were booths I wanted to try things from and never did because I couldn’t get close enough. If you did get up to a booth, you felt pressured to move along quickly to make room for others.

One thing I enjoy about attending these sorts of festivals is the chance to connect with people from small businesses. I’m a bit of a localist and I like to talk with business owners and producers and get to know their story. I don’t feel like I got to have one genuine conversation at this event, because everyone was so harried, and the ambient noise from the crowd was so overwhelming.

The crowd had other impacts, too. By the time we left at around before 4 (with the event due to end at 5), both of the women’s restrooms upstairs had completely run out of TP and paper towels. The trashcans at the end of the hall were so overflowing with drink cups and other refuse that trash was spilling onto the floor. It’s frankly not acceptable for a venue to not stay on top of stocking bathrooms and hauling garbage.

I really feel like the event was over-sold. If I pay for a ticket to go to a tasting event, I expect to have the chance to actually taste things and talk to producers and take the time to decide what I want to purchase. One reason why we brought home less chocolate than we might have is that by the time we were done, I was so exhausted that I couldn’t face the idea of backtracking to revisit some of the booths I liked.

To be honest, I’m torn as to whether I’ll return to the chocolate festival for their 10th anniversary next year. I might be better served by going over to Central Market and spending $50-75 dollars on fancy chocolate bars and having a tasting at home, just Chris and I, without the loud crowds and messy bathrooms.

Did you visit the Northwest Chocolate Festival? What was your experience?