I agree the cottage living festivals are boring. City living has the best festivals but they have gown downhill ever since. The dev team totally missed the atmosphere. I’ve been to many agricultural shows where live stock is displayed in competition and there is so much going on with a ton to see and do. This is literally just watching sims dance and talk for ten hours.
And the results of the competition do seem totally random. How did my cow who has their needs and friendship maxed out come in third place when there was only one other cow in the contest? To add insult to injury the second place cow stats were much worse.