Should you go to a tomato battle? The short answer: no. The long answer: if you don’t mind getting pelted in the face (ears, nose, cheeks, eyes, hair) and having dried fermenting/rotting tomato pieces all over your skin and hair, then maybe you might like the tomato battle.

Breakdown by:

price – The tomato battle started out around $29 for pre-registering. The price went up from there to end around $52 (day of). Then Groupon swooped in with a reduced price ($35). Even $29 is too much for this event. $29 is better spent at the ipic in Redmond or a live show at Laughs or The Village Theatre in Issaquah.

Time/Day/Date – This Battle fell on a boring Saturday (not much else going on) except for the fact that the weather kicked it up a gear and a full on windstorm was raging in the Seattle area. There were only around 500 people at the event (the website said 5,000 participants). The timing during the day was great, after lunch and before dinner. In the middle of any other thing you would have going on. Event started at 1PM. My buddies pictured above and below and I headed down to Seattle after 1PM and had an excellent meal at Pyramid Ale House (surprisingly no wait time) and meandered around back around 3:30PM in time to grab another beer/wine, check out the costume contest, chill and chat and spectate, and dance to a few songs.

Other entertainment – The music was not loud enough. The costume contest was rather lame (anything voted on by the audience who are somewhat drunk and non-serious is always, always super lame). The “beer” pong was impossible with the wind. I would not suggest showing up more than an hour before the battle as you will be impossibly anxious sitting (no seats so you’re standing) around waiting for the start time of the main event. I was glad that there was wine as well as beer for sale in the battle area.

Location – Pyrmaid Alehouse was a great central location in Seattle. There was plenty of cheap parking nearby (We paid $5). The alehouse was accommodating for our lunch date before the battle.

Would I do it again? No.

Would I do it had I known all this before? Probably. It’s a one time gotta do it type thing. Like skydiving… Who does that more than once?