Budget Fun in Orange County?

Finding a truely cheap way of having fun in Orange County is not hard. There are plenty of free parks, community events, hiking/biking trails within walking distance, and plenty of meet-ups with various interests.

However, some of the Orange County festivals with cheap admission fees can result in spending more money on things that you normally wouldn't pay as much for. For example, food at festivals. Our experience at a local festival, called Sawdust Festival, turned out to be more expensive than we anticipated......Not so Budget Fun in Orange County..

A few weekends ago, Laguna Beach's Sawdust Festival seemed interesting to us to finally go. It's within 15 minutes of driving. The admission was $7.50 per person. It is within our budget. We figured "let's do something different than watching movies at home!"

Sawdust Festival is basically a gathering of local Laguna artists in stalls, where they can present and sell their art. The type of art that we saw was a wide variety from painting to potttery in various and interesting mediums. It is called Sawdust Festival because the entire ground was covered in sawdust and it had a lovely woodsy scent throughout.The festival was a wonderful way of meeting and supporting local artists.

The Bad: The food was expensive for us. Garlic fries for $8. It was a small serving of fries (bland and very little seasoning) on a bed of "gourmet" leafy greens. I think the leafy greens made it $8. We got a sandwich which was $10. A tiny flat sandwich with, yet again, gourmet leafy greens. The sandwich tasted good but $10?? Soda was $4.00. I don't think the artists get any share of revenue gained from the expensive food that was sold there. After a whole day of walking around, we were starving so we ended up spending $50 on food and drink excluding the admission fees.

The morale of the story is that bring your own water and packed lunches and mix elbows with rich people who order $8 tiny plastic cups of beer. Spend that $50 that would have been spent on food and drinks on an artist's hard work. We're learning as we go. 

Any similar experiences or is this just South Orange County?