Best Craft Festival 2014 | Crafeteria | People & Places | Phoenix
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Best Craft Festival

Crafeteria

When it comes to handcrafting our own creative knickknacks, most of us are in DIY denial. Fortunately, there's one night of the year when Martha Stewart wannabes and Pinterest pariahs can holster their sad glue guns and hand themselves over to the professionals. In the midst of the holiday season, talented makers of all media gather in Medlock Plaza, at the corner of Camelback and Central, to sell one-of-a-kind jewelry, clothing, candles, toys, accessories, and more. Put aside your notions of patchouli oil perfumes and poorly knit sweaters because Frances boutique owner and Crafeteria founder Georganne Bryant holds her handmade merchandise to a much higher standard. Mark your calendars and avoid the mainstream department stores because you're buying custom gifts done right this December.

  • W. Camelback Rd., Phoenix, 85013 Map

Best Dance Festival

CONDER/dance's "Breaking Ground" at Tempe Center for the Arts

At first, it seemed the name of CONDER/dance's yearly contemporary dance festival was a little presumptuous, but groundbreaking actually is a good description of the impressive choreography we saw in this year's celebration. Breaking Ground was started in 2007 to showcase new choreographers from around the world, but these days CONDER/dance makes a special effort to highlight local talent as well. During this year's performances at Tempe Center for the Arts, visitors were greeted by pre-show, site-specific dances staged throughout the lobby, adding a new level of intimacy for audience members. There were two separate Breaking Ground programs for the main stage event, with 17 total artists featured over the course of the weekend. The pieces left us feeling excited about the future of contemporary dance (no small feat, to be sure).

Best Film Festival

Phoenix Film Festival

Technicolor us impressed. In its 14th year, the Phoenix Film Festival brought to Harkins Scottsdale 101 nearly 200 films from emerging and established filmmakers. Over the course of a week, world-class (and critically acclaimed) flicks including Gillian Robespierre's abortion rom-com Obvious Child, Clark Gregg's Trust Me, and Steven Knight's Tom Hardy vehicle, Locke. Perhaps more impressive were this year's selections of local films. Both documentarian Randy Murray's The Joe Show, an upsetting exploration of Sheriff Joe Arpaio's media savvy, and Kiernan Thompson's comedy Broken Leg sold out screenings. Great movies, butts in seats, and the chance to talk with filmmakers about their vision . . . What more could Valley cinephiles ask for?

Best Music Festival

Viva PHX

Presented by New Times and Stateside Presents, Viva PHX felt like the downtown we've always imagined, with big names like Pinback, the Neighbourhood, Yacht, Z-Trip, and Arizona acts like Sergio Mendoza y La Orkesta, Dry River Yacht Club, Playboy Manbaby, Cherie Cherie, and more playing at downtown venues such as Crescent Ballroom, Bar Smith, CitySpace, Last Exit Live, Hotel San Carlos, and more. It wasn't just a concert; it was an event that felt like South by Southwest. It was a sprawling, massive middle finger in the air toward anyone who says "Phoenix isn't a music town." And it'll be back in 2015.

Best Place to Learn to Tell Tales

South Mountain Community College Storytelling Institute

Long before standing onstage and telling stories became the next big thing, South Mountain Community College was making a name for itself in the ancient art of storytelling. Storytelling is more complex than simply memorizing a script; no two performances are the same, and the tradition is steeped in the humanities and how we all get along (or don't). Led by director Liz Warren, an internationally acclaimed storyteller in her own right, the institute is a great place to take a basic class or even study for an academic certificate.

Best Culinary Festival

Devoured Food + Wine Classic

It seems every time we turn around, there's a new food festival going down around town. At some point, they all start to blend together into a sea of tiny plates, wine samples, and chef demonstrations. And inevitably, by the end of the festival season, the one that stands out is Devoured. Not only does this event gather the city's top chefs, but each participating restaurant puts forth an effort you just don't see at other events.

This year at the two-day event held at Phoenix Art Museum, we tasted all manner of delicacies, from oysters and truffles to so much foie gras that we thought we would burst. And don't even get us started on the wine. There were so many local wineries pouring samples that we had to pop into a cooking demonstration just to sober up. In fact, our only recommendation for next year's event would be to add nap rooms where guests can take a rest. Pipe dream? Maybe, but if the trend took off anywhere, it would be at Devoured.

Best Beer Festival

Real, Wild, and Woody

You didn't have to be a beer fanatic to enjoy this year's inaugural Real, Wild, and Woody Beer Festival — but if you are, you'll have no trouble understanding what made it a knockout success. Organized by the Arizona Craft Brewers Guild, this event gathered all the state's top breweries for a throwdown of epic proportions. Nearby brew houses brought a specialty cask or barrel-aged brew, which they released only at the event. It was a showcase of beers unlike any you've ever tasted before and which you're unlikely to have the chance to ever taste again. Add the fact that the festival went down indoors during the middle of summer — as opposed to during the busy fall and spring event seasons — and you've really won our hearts.

Best Cocktail Event

Arizona Cocktail Week

Culinary events tend to fall into one of two categories. There are fun events that center on enjoying great food and drink and educational events from which you walk away with a new understanding about a food-related topic. Arizona Cocktail Week is the first event we've been to that does a flawless job of accomplishing both. This relatively new festival offers a week of cocktail-centric events ranging from booze-filled parties to seminars with some of the nation's top drink experts. The lineup this year was better than ever, and we're only expecting things to continue improving as the event continues to grow. In the span of just a few days, we managed to triple our knowledge of spirits and got a good grasp of what's going on in the national cocktail scene. The only thing we'd change for our plans for next year is to book a room at the host hotel; spirit tasting is no joke.

Best Mural Event

Paint PHX

We're all for adding color to Phoenix's largely beige landscape. Turns out, so is street artist Thomas "Breeze" Marcus. Breeze gathered similarly minded muralists to spend a weekend adding art to walls around Phoenix. In March, local and out-of-state creatives teamed up with businesses along Grand Avenue, Roosevelt Row, and Calle 16 to paint original pieces — with support in both paint and wall space from Calle 16's Barrio Cafe and The Hive, as well as artist JB Snyder's Fifth Street Paint Supply. Thanks to their combined efforts, new works went up all over the city. A couple of our favorites are La Muñeca's piece about families torn apart by deportations, at Dulcería Pico Rico, and a collaborative piece by Breeze, Dwayno Insano, and Vyal at Por Vida Gallery.

Best Gaming Event

ZapCon

For pinball and vintage arcade fiends, ZapCon is a little like Christmas. Except better. Why? Well, for starters, it's a weekend-long convention dedicated to throwback gaming. For the second year in a row, ZapCon rounded up long-lost titles and covetable consoles for a weekend of button-mashing and joystick-wielding. With a lounge dedicated to the Atari console, super-rare games such as Turkey Shoot, and classics like Zaxxon, there were plenty of reasons to geek out over the event. The many tournaments, movie screenings, and prevailing sense of giddiness? That was the bow on top.

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