The 11th Annual Wildwoods Seafood and Music Festival

The 11th Annual Wildwoods Seafood and Music Festival was held last week on Saturday, October 6th, 2018. This family-friendly event was hosted on Atlantic Avenue, between Schellenger and Wildwood Avenue. It's a street fair and you can find paid parking nearby or walk down to the festival from the Wildwoods boardwalk. Admission is free.

They have 2 stages set up where you'll find the bands playing. This year they had the groups SassFaction, Electric Beach Band, 99 Reasons and Shot of Southern. We had the opportunity to hear two of the bands play and our favorite that day was SassFaction. They played a lot of music from the 1980's which is our favorite genre.

Along both sides of the street you'll find the vendor booths where you can buy locally-made arts, crafts, jewelry, clothing, home decor, gifts, etc. There were a few vendor trucks there where you could purchase freshly-made food and beverages. Several of the nearby restaurants were open and serving food too!

In the large parking lot they had an area set up for families with children to enjoy. There were bounce houses, pumpkin painting, arts & crafts, outdoor yard games, etc. Children must be accompanied by an adult when participating in these activities. Playing the games and jumping in the bounce house, you do so at your own risk, so please watch your children closely.

We spent 1 1/2 hours enjoying the festivities at the 11th Annual Wildwoods Seafood & Music Festival and had a really nice time. We had decent weather for the day (mix of sun & clouds, but no rain) and the temperatures were on the mild side at around 80 degrees. Yes, 80 degrees for early October at the Jersey Shore.

If I had to make any recommendations, I would like to see more vendors (both food and non-food) next year and I would love to see something done about those who price-gouge the parking lot fees during the events. We had to pay $15.00 to park in a parking lot nearby and only spent 1 1/2 hours at the festival. That's ridiculous, but being handicap, I couldn't walk 8 blocks to get to the festival. If they want more guests to visit the festival, they need to talk to businesses about NOT over-charging on parking lot fees.

This was our second year in a row visiting the Wildwoods Seafood & Music Festival and we're looking forward to visiting again next year. Visiting Wildwood during the first week in October is a really nice time to visit the beach. It's the off-season and you can get low-cost overnight accommodations, boardwalk stores are still open & marking down prices, Morey's Piers is open Friday & Saturday for the amusement park rides and so forth. A nice way to say goodbye to summer and hello to fall.