The Awesometown Gourmet Food Truck Festival took place during the weekend, bringing 22 food truck vendors to the Bridgeport Marketplace in Valencia for one night.  

But you already knew that, since it seemed as if all of Santa Clarita was there.  

According to Marlee Lauffer, spokeswoman for Newhall Land Development LLC., the company that put on the event, approximately 7 to 8,000 people attended, far more than the 2 to 3,000 expected.  

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Boxed within two lanes of the parking lot were the 22 trucks, a stage with a DJ, large round tables with chairs as well as smaller ones for standing, and the aforementioned mass of the hungry.  

Needless to say, the comments of eager anticipation in the early-going quickly turned to a powerful buzz of unrest and dissatisfaction.  

And as I had now waited 15 minutes for meatballs – of all things – in line for the Great Balls on Tires food truck – still at least 100 people away, I almost added my two cents to the air of discontent whirling around me.  

But I didn’t, instead asking the guy behind me the score of the playoff baseball game between the New York Yankees and the Texas Rangers.  

Let’s face it: barely any of us knew what to expect from a Food Truck Festival, and from what I could gather from people who had attended similar events like those in Los Angeles or Orange County, what enfolded on Saturday in Valencia was par for the course.  

My previous experience with food trucks stopped at Lyons Avenue, where I once ate some Korean “pub-grub” from Ahn-Joo, a vendor and style of food I had never tried before.  

I also met about 10 new people that night, talking about the food and the weather – two universal subjects of conversation that has the power to connect the wealthy businessman to the criminally insane.  

Obviously, a festival featuring 22 trucks attempting to feed thousands poses a tougher challenge than a lone vendor on Lyons meeting and greeting a handful of pleasantly waiting people.  

As I had now waited more than 45 minutes to spend $6.50 on something called Incrediballs, I understood that this was a completely unique experience, both for myself and Santa Clarita.  

I turned around to take in the scene:  

People poured in from every angle of the parking lot, spilling in from spots on McBean Parkway, Newhall Ranch Road and Grandview Drive. Young women, young men, seniors, children, parents, singles, couples, families – you couldn’t miss them. Under the darkening gray-blue sky, the taut lights on wires revealed something I had never witnessed before here: a city.  

The Food Truck Festival was reminiscent of frozen moments in downtown Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York – places I had been and simply took the revolving crowds as requisite.  

During weekend nights, I am often somewhere in Santa Clarita and I wonder, “Where is everybody?”  

On Saturday night, they were at the Food Truck Festival, and though you or someone next to you may have complained about the unexpected wait, the lack of room, or how your feet hurt, you probably also struck up a conversation with a guy like me, happy to talk about our impending meals, the weather, sports…  

Or the poor choice of music. (Granted, I’m sure the DJ who provided the music is world-class in his field, but if there is one thing Santa Clarita is not, it is not a club. Knowing our residents, Michael Bublé on repeat or the sweet sounds of nothing would have sufficed.)  

Point is, even in our complaining most of us were partaking in something new: a single night where we had the opportunity to try a touted dish or delicacy – one that might be prepared by a celebrated chef – outside, in perfect weather and with our neighbors.  

I asked Lauffer if the event could return, and if so, at a larger location.  

“Sure. Bridgeport’s been fabulous to work with in letting us use their facility and the restaurants have been very supportive and the other businesses here, but certainly, judging on the success of this, we need a place that’s a little bit bigger with a little more parking, so, if we do this again, which I hope we will, we’ll look into that.”  

As an infant city, Santa Clarita is constantly in the throes of appeasing all of its residents who really live here for different reasons – from established families, to new families, to wide-eyed college students, to struggling college graduates, to young professionals to senior citizens.  

It’s an incredible, if not impossible task, something that older or less-populated cities will never have to tackle.  

But Santa Clarita does, and the Food Truck Festival is just one attempt into establishing these strongly individual communities as a city with its own identity.