How The Gilroy Garlic Festival Got Canceled

The Gilroy Garlic Festival got canceled after operating for 42 years. With the 2019 shooting, COVID-19, and insurance costs, the three-day event became history. Smaller events like the golf tournament, concert, and farmer’s table are still on for 2022. The garlic powder hadn’t settled on that announcement when another announcement got made. The Stockton Garlic Festival will be at the San Joaquin fairgrounds in mid-August. Will a competing garlic festival cancel the cancellation of the Gilroy Garlic Festival?

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A Shooter Outgunned My Gilroy Garlic Festival Videos On YouTube

Image by Fox News

A haf hour after my second Gilroy Garlic Festival video went live on my YouTube channel, I got a comment with two questions that made no sense.

“Wasn’t there a shooting at this place? Who else is here because of the shooting?”

I stared at the comment in disbelief. Surely, this was a joke. A shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival?

A Google search showed that an active shooter alert went live at the same time as my video. Looking at the real time analytics, both videos experienced a sharp spike in traffic. No surprise. My two videos with Chef Tom Colicchio in a cooking demo and announcing the winners of the Great Garlic Cook-Off were the newest videos for the Gilroy Garlic Festival.

I pinned this comment to both of my videos:

“There is an active shooter at the Gilroy Garlic Festival, reported at 5:30 PM Pacific today (7/28/2019). The two videos that I posted were from yesterday and have nothing to do with the shooting. Thoughts and prayers for the victims.”

Since the mainstream media was slow to report the shooting, I watched it unfold on Twitter while the views for my videos climbed steadily upward for the next three hours.

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