San Gennaro Italian Festival

Two weeks ago, the Husband and I and our friends decided to check out the San Gennaro Italian Festival. I’m not perfectly sure what we were expecting, but it was not it! It was a fascinating experience in my opinion…

As soon as we arrived at the Silverton Casino, I knew things were going to be a bit different than I thought… a very bright ferris wheel was there for starters.

We lucked out with parking and had only a short walk to the ticket booths.

Once in the event, we saw some booths for local election stuff (which btw local Las Vegas candidates – stop sending us your pamphlets in the mail!). Around the corner from that was a bus for the Las Vegas Mob Experience. We took a look on the inside of the bus – a full fledged old school prison bus… Seemed pretty cool. Perhaps we’ll check it out in person some time?

There were gold statues of the San Gennaro (or the pope?) covered in money.

And then there were rows of food… but what surprised me was that only some of it was Italian. Hmm… as I type that, I realize that the festival wasn’t an “italian festival” but a festival for San Gennaro… perhaps he liked quesadillas and chicken platters?

Before finding a stand we wanted food from, we found the alcohol tent, conveniently located next to the entertainment stage. It was the quintessential Vegas performance… a male singer who sounded like Frank Sinatra (or at least wanted to) and women with giant feathers on their head.

Then for some reason the patriotic woman was on stage while he sang a patriotic song. Quite a followup to the Vegas showgirls above.

It was at this point, while admiring the large crowd, that I proclaimed this was the Jersey Shore version of an Italian festival. I wish I had gotten more pictures, but here’s a snapshot of some of the guys we saw. A bit blurry and doesn’t really give you the big picture but trust me! Jersey Shore. And the Husband and I have never even seen the show