When we started the ACBF in , there were relatively few beer festivals in our area. Unless you can find a free weekend with no other festivals, starting a new one may be a bad idea. Most brewers are asked to support an event almost every week. In addition to potentially donating beer, brewery staff must spend time supporting the event.
Most brewers create their festival schedule early in the year and then turn down additional requests. Most homebrewers would love to showcase their beers to the public, which raises the question of serving homebrew at your festival. Generally, this is illegal. This varies somewhat state to state, but some states prohibit distribution of homebrew in a public setting. Too much, too soon and you risk a melt. Not enough, people are sipping warm beer.
And to make matters even worse, pouring warm beer can lead to excess foam which hurts both the vendors and the guests. So, 5 vendors, each sampling one type of beer over an 8 hour period means pounds of ice for each vendor or pounds in total.
Planning your ice amounts requires a conversation with the vendors. Find out early how many beers or adult beverages they are planning to sample and go from there.
To make things easier during the festival itself, consider renting a forklift or some sort of equipment to easily deliver ice to each vendor. This can speed things up and save backbreaking labor during the event itself. While beer may be made from wheat and barley, it does not actually constitute food. Providing food for your guests is both necessary and responsible. You do not want people walking around all day consuming alcohol with no food in their stomachs.
Give their taste buds a little something too! Food trucks and other popular local restaurants present great opportunities for you to engage even deeper with the community. In some cases, inviting these types of vendors will lead to increased interest and increased ticket sales.
If you want your guests to stick around, you need to offer more than a bag of pretzels! You need to make sure that water is readily available to guests, particularly at summer festivals.
You could sell water, but you should also provide free public drinking water. This would encourage people to bring a reusable container from home that can be filled at watering stations set up throughout the venue. Pulling off a successful beer festival means being in frequent contact with the brewers you have invited.
It is important to let them know about ticket sales and expected attendance so they can bring the proper amount of beer. Running out of drinks at a beer festival is not an option! In general, you will want to overestimate the amount of beer you need.
There is a simple equation available to help you and the brewers determine what they will need:. Before you calculate this amount, you will need to make a few decisions. Will your beer festival place emphasis on learning about the beer, the brewing company, and their processes?
Or, will you try to move people through each station more quickly? Understanding this, combined with tickets sold, will help you determine the number of pours per minute. Use that number, typically somewhere between 2 and 10, to calculate the number of ounces a brewer will need. Communication with brewers can also help you determine ticket pricing and structure.
The brewers may have previous festival experience that can help you create a situation that is better for all parties involved. For example, do you plan to sell festival tickets at the gate?
If so, this could create an increase in beer supply. Letting brewers know that you are enabling day-of purchases can help them better plan for a greater number of guests. Similarly, make sure to consult vendors about ticket pricing. Download the full Beer Fest Guide here to get your fill of need-to-know info.
Here are their secrets to hosting a successful beer festival that keeps people coming back year after year: 1. A unique enough location can help you stand out from the other beer-themed events. Was this article helpful? All Rights Reserved. I wanted to show off our establishments, making the work we do locally a sustained contribution to the local economy.
Similarly, Gautam Bhatnagar who founded Craft Beer Cares back in had the bright idea of launching a beer festival to highlight causes that are important to him and the wider community of London craft brewers.
I was initially inspired by Cook For Syria, and after speaking with small, independent brewers they were keen to get involved. This idea became a plan for a friendly, accessible fest that tapped into the passion brewers and drinkers feel for beer and for their local communities while raising the profile of charities we cared about like Art Against Knives.
Any event organiser knows that they are nothing without the people working solidly behind the scenes. Right from the start you need your festival to have a reason for being. The festival market is crowded, so find something different, contact local breweries, link into your community and smaller local charities.
Tap into that passion. The sooner you get a crack team of excellent people together to help realise your dream, the better. The Independent Salford Beer Fest is in its sixth successful year, and founder and organiser Jim Cullen is open about how much hard work it takes to run a charity festival like his — but how rewarding it is too. I had no idea where to start, so I asked Twitter. Now they are good friends, both to me and each other.
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