NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Last week, NewsChannel 5 Investigates exposed how the Taco and Margarita Festival that was coming to town had a long history of problems.
And after Saturday's festival at Nissan Stadium, we heard from a lot of you who were disappointed and upset.
The Taco and Margarita Fest at Nissan Stadium last Saturday was promoted as "The World's Largest Taco Festival."
Michael Proia went with his family and friends. He'd been looking forward to it for a month.
"How were the tacos?" NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked him.
"They were miserable. They were awful," he said.
Proia said it was more flop than festival.
"I saw more tacos in the trays in the trash than I saw empty trays in the trash. Nobody was eating them. Everybody was throwing them away," Proia recalled.
The margaritas, he said, weren't much better.
"There was tequila in them but outside of that, they just tasted like they were mixed with Kool-Aid or something that. They didn’t taste like an actual margarita," Proia described.
And he's not the only one.
We found a stream of angry complaints online about Saturday's event, including on the Taco and Margarita Fest's own Facebook page.
That's also where the Taco Fest promoter announced that United Festival Productions was not responsible for the food and beverage portion of the festival and directed people with concerns to Nissan Stadium.
Curiously, by Monday afternoon, though, all of the posts and complaints had been removed from the site.
But, it is true. The Titans had hired the stadium's in-house concession company to provide the tacos and margaritas.
Promoters advertised the event with pictures of amazing-looking shots of food, promising "chef-crafted signature tacos."
We showed Proia the pictures and asked, "is this what you got?"
"That’s not anything close to what I got," he replied.
People who were at the festival posted pictures of the tacos they received and they were nothing like what was promised or pictured.
The promoter, Adam Dobres, head of United Festival Productions, insisted the Titans had provided the photos he used to promote the event.
Now if the complaints about Saturday's event sound familiar, perhaps, it's because, as we first reported last week, people seem to say the same sorts of things in city after city as Dobres crisscrosses the country with his Taco and Margarita Festival concept.
"It was just thrown together. It was a moneymaking venture. There was no festival vibe or anything like that. It was just horrible cafeteria food," Proia said.
By the way, people paid anywhere from $20 to $75 dollars to get into the festival and tacos were not included with the price of admission.
We did reach out to the Titans for comment, but have not received any sort of response.
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