Major League Midsummer Classic No Cheap Ballgame

Major League Baseball‘s All-Star Game is an annual game between players from the National and American Leagues, this year to be played in Queens, New York. Baseball fans will come from around the world to Citi Field, home of the New York Mets, spending as much as $1,437 per night for a hotel and up to $20,000 for a ticket.

There are less expensive tickets; online source Ticket Liquidator has a view from the cheap seats starting at $235 each right now. Assuming ticket price does not knock attending the All-Star game out of the ballpark, less expensive hotels are on deck too.

Checking in with hotel search engine Room 77, travelers can expect to pay an average $286 per night during All Star Week. They have the 3.5-star LaGuardia Plaza Hotel, located 2 miles from Citi Field, for $120 per night. Or make a vacation out of it at the Ritz Carlton Central Park for $608 per night.

At the park, major league expenses continue with the cost of food and beverages to get through nine innings. Offering a hot dog for $6.25, Citi Field ranks high in a recent CNNMoney report on which ballparks charge the most.On the topic of ballpark food, it could be worse though. Rangers Ballpark, home of the Texas Rangers in Arlington, Texas, has a $26 hamburger among other offerings, as we see in this video:

Underwater Concert A Summertime Favorite

This time of year, festivals and events scattered around the United States are often the highlight of summer, drawing visitors from near and far. As part of a road trip, a weekend outing or just a break from summer monotony, outdoor summer concerts take advantage of the nice weather, bringing our favorite artists or bands to enjoy. Those sincere in their desire to escape the heat go to Big Pine Keys in Florida where their version is held underwater.

The Lower Keys Underwater Music Festival in Big Pine Keys, Florida, is in its 29th year, inviting water-lovers for an underwater concert. This year the theme is a Salute to the Rolling Stone Crabs.Held at Looe Key Reef, an area of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, and produced by Florida Keys radio station WWUS 104.1 FM, the Lower Keys Underwater Music Festival draws hundreds of divers and snorkelers each year. To enjoy the sound of music in the ocean, music is broadcast through Lubell Laboratory speakers suspended beneath boats.

Macy’s New York City July Fourth Fireworks In Time-Lapse (VIDEO)


The folks over at ANIMAL know how to churn out good, art-centric content without fail and with this video of Macy’s New York City Fireworks 2013, they’ve done it again. I accidentally missed the fireworks show myself while disoriented at a house party on Staten Island, unsure of which direction would take me to the view of the show from the water, and I attempted to make up for the mishap by looking at videos of fireworks when I got home that evening. But videos of fireworks are generally boring, which is why ANIMAL’s time-lapse approach to the NYC July Fourth fireworks is brilliant – in about one minute, you’ll see around 1500 exposures taken by ANIMAL’s Aymann Ismail from the ANIMAL office rooftop.

[Thanks, ANIMAL]

Dueling Summer Garlic Festivals Find Common Ground

Summer festivals and events often bring open-air concerts, barbecues, annual farm-oriented contests and more. The warm weather experienced in the United States from June through September has a way of doing that. To summer day trippers, it’s often not a problem of finding an event to attend, but choosing which one. Such is the case in Oregon where dueling garlic festivals had friends and neighbors at odds.

The Elephant Garlic Fest (slogan: “fun stinks”) has been held for 15 years in North Plains, Oregon. This year, organizers of the North Plains event decided to combine their festival with an annual barbecue and truck and tractor pull held in Banks, Oregon. Meanwhile, others in North Plains still wanted their garlic festival, so they organized one of their own, the Summer Fest and Garlic Out West (slogan: “where it’s chic to reek”).

With the events happening on two consecutive weekends, one week and less than 10 miles apart, community organizers worried that neither would receive the attendance needed to make them successful.Now, after months of battling that included intellectual property disputes, conflict-of-interest accusations and claims of impropriety, it will be the 2013 North Plains Summer Fest & Garlic Out West Festival in North Plains that prevails. To be held August 9-11, the event will feature live music, food and craft vendors, beer and wine garden, fundraiser runs, pancake breakfasts, a parade down Main Street and more.

The festival also features garlic beer, garlic ice cream, garlic milk shakes and more, as we see in this video:



Meanwhile back in Banks, the Barbecue and Tractor Pull will continue and be held August 16-18, minus the garlic.

Wondering what the big deal is about garlic in Oregon anyway? In 2010, the United States exported 18.6 million pounds of garlic, much of which was grown in Oregon.

French Vintage Carnival Rides Come To NYC

If you are a fan of carnival rides, history, or just good old-fashioned summer fun, take a ferry out to NYC’s Governor’s Island this summer for a festival of vintage Parisian rides and carousels. Billed as a museum meets amusement park, Fete Paradiso will open on July 13 and run until September 29, and feature 19th- and 20th-century attractions such as a pipe organ, flying swings and a bicycle carousel like the one featured in “Midnight in Paris.” To add to the vintage French feel, there will be food from bistro Le Gamin and a beer hall and event space converted from a 1900 bumper car pavilion, along with special events opening weekend for Bastille Day.

Admission to Fete Paradiso is free and rides are $3 a pop. The free ferry to Governor’s Island from Manhattan‘s Battery Maritime building or Brooklyn‘s Pier 6 runs half-hourly until 7 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday. Learn more about Governor’s Island on their website, and follow the carnival set up on Instagram here.