Mark’s Score 8.6
I am a big fan of Salisbury Zoo. Its origin story affirms my belief that some of the best things in life occur serendipitously. Salisbury has a zoo because people just started leaving wild animals in a city park. Out of an act of human kindness, other people started taking care of those animals, and eventually the city built a zoo to house them.
There are no entry fees for Salisbury Zoo. The zoo gets its funding via support from the city, sponsorships, memberships, and fund-raising events. Wild Vibes is one such event. The second Wild Vibes event took place on Saturday November 15th. It included live music, food trucks, local brewers, wineries, local vendors, and of course the animals themselves. The live entertainment included four remarkably good country bands on two different stages.
Last year, being the first year of the event, less than 200 people attended. This year attendance doubled to nearly 400. The event ran for four hours from 1:00 – 5:00 pm. I can attest that most people stayed for the entire time. I am going to take that as an indicator that the majority of people enjoyed themselves.
Because alcohol is served, this is an adults-only event. At the entrance you are given a cup and an arm band. The price of entry includes free samples of wine and beer. One of the great things about this area are the large number of brewers. This event gives you an opportunity to sample the products of a number of local wineries and brewers all in one location. The Wild Vibes event is meant to highlight local vendors, so no national vendors were present. Local brewers present this year included; Evo. RAR, Burley Oaks, Burnish, and Dewey Beach Brewery. The wineries included Layton’s Chance, Bordeleau, and Tipsy Teacher.
I am a light-weight when it comes to alcohol. So, I paced myself. I sampled the products of only one winery, Tipsy Teacher. I was already familiar with the other two. As for the beers, I decided this would be the prefect time to focus on stouts. By far, the most interesting was Dewey Beach’s coconut stout. I am generally not a fan of stouts, but I liked their coconut stout so much, I resolved to pay their tasting room a visit in the near future.
This was a fund raiser for the zoo, so of course the animals took center stage. You can of course see the animals as you walked around the zoo, but the zoo also staged presentations in the education center highlighting specific animals. I particularly enjoyed the carpet python and owl presentations.
If you have never attended Wild Vibes, you should put it on your calendar for next year. The zoo did an excellent job in organizing this event. You get to enjoy the zoo, sample good food, good drink, and good music while promoting a great cause. What is there not to like about that?
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