Bank of America Stadium to host inaugural Untappd Beer Festival

[kungfoodude]

17 hours ago, Johnny Rockets said:

I enjoy beer of all types but never had a desire to attend a beer festival. I imagine them all being an over crowded mess of drunken bros, waiting in long lines for undersized beers. Am I wrong?

It depends on the kind of festival, for this one, it will probably be a mess. And the brewery lineup is pretty ho-hum. 

I always spring for VIP or Early Access at every festival. That is typically where you can hit high value targets(IE breweries and beers that are going to draw large lines) and then basically just chill out and try beer the rest of the event.

If the festival is run poorly, they will way oversell tickets and every line is long. A lot depends on how an event is run.

[kungfoodude]

17 hours ago, LinvilleGorge said:

This. I've lived in Colorado for 12 years yet I've never been to the Great American Beer Festival simply because it's an absolute shitshow. You pretty much summed it up perfectly.

GABF is a must do on any beer nerds bucket list but really the biggest draw around GABF is all the events the week it goes on.

[kungfoodude]

5 hours ago, RoaringRiot said:

Guys on an internet message board talking poo about the demographics of a beer festival is pure comedy. 

The funny thing is that this is going to be a pretty mainstream event. Most of the crazy beer crowd is going to skip it. But, the most insufferable are the hipster douches, which predominantly know very little about beer in general. You'd be surprised how many skinny jeans wearing, beard sporting, horn rimmed glasses crowd actually know much about beer. They like to talk a good game but they are pretty easy to figure out.

[RoaringRiot]

17 minutes ago, kungfoodude said:

It depends on the kind of festival, for this one, it will probably be a mess. And the brewery lineup is pretty ho-hum. 

 

The company running this one has a ton of experience. Doubt it will be a mess. But 15K people is a ton, so....

[kungfoodude]

Just now, RoaringRiot said:

The company running this one has a ton of experience. Doubt it will be a mess. But 15K people is a ton, so....

You mean Untappd?

[RoaringRiot]

4 minutes ago, kungfoodude said:

You mean Untappd?

No. 

Edit: there is an additional company partnered to manage logistics, which specializes in festivals. Panthers aren’t going to fug this up 

[kungfoodude]

17 hours ago, OneBadCat said:

Hell yeah. I work at a local brewery. I’m sure as poo calling off for this lol.

What brewery?

[kungfoodude]

5 minutes ago, RoaringRiot said:

No. 

Edit: there is an additional company partnered to manage logistics, which specializes in festivals. Panthers aren’t going to fug this up 

Yeah, I was going to say, as a software company I am not sure they would be qualified for that. Are they really going to allow 15K tickets to be sold?

[RoaringRiot]

1 minute ago, kungfoodude said:

Yeah, I was going to say, as a software company I am not sure they would be qualified for that. Are they really going to allow 15K tickets to be sold?

Ha - for sure. I think this is the first festival that Untappd has been a part of (thought I read that somewhere)

Yes the story said 15K - haven’t heard that from the Panthers yet though. Seems like a lot. I’ll find out more details either this weekend at the Combine or next week. We talked a few weeks ago about having a presence there so hopefully we get the OK for it. 

[RoaringRiot]

Fun fact: some of the original Untappd guys started a brewery in Wilmington called TRU Colors and they employee gang members - from rival gangs - to help reform them and stop violence. They’ve participated in Cam’s kickball tournament the last two/three years. Pretty cool - good people. 

[kungfoodude]

1 minute ago, RoaringRiot said:

Ha - for sure. I think this is the first festival that Untappd has been a part of (thought I read that somewhere)

 Yes the story said 15K - haven’t heard that from the Panthers yet though. Seems like a lot. I’ll find out more details either this weekend at the Combine or next week. We talked a few weeks ago about having a presence there so hopefully we get the OK for it. 

Yeah, that is an insane amount for only 40 breweries at 2-4 taps per brewery. We are a month out so the list is likely to grow but if they really sell 10-15k tickets, you will need to boost the taps/brewery or number of breweries. I would be pretty shocked if they sell more than 5-6k, regardless. The brewery lineup is not going to get many to travel from out of state to participate. It's great to see all the local breweries participate but the out of state participation is pretty disappointing. One of the bigger draws is to get to try beer that you cannot typically obtain locally. From the list the only breweries that aren't local or distribute to NC are Alewife, Saint Arthur, Saugatuck, Thorn and Weldworks. And unless Weldworks, Modern Times and Heist ball out with their selections, that would eliminate the hardcore crowd(of which NC/VA has a VERY large group of). The Bruery is limited in what they can do because a lot of their rarer and a good chunk of their best stuff(especially non-sour) is above NC ABV limits.

And I don't say that to be negative about the event. Frankly, the price point is very reasonable. $50-65 for 4-5 hours of unlimited sampling is pretty solid. It is pretty easy to do that much damage just going to a beer bar with a lot of tap handles available. 

[RoaringRiot]

@kungfoodude where did you get 40 from? Just the current participation list? I dont think they’re near done adding to the list. 

[kungfoodude]

3 minutes ago, RoaringRiot said:

@kungfoodude where did you get 40 from? Just the current participation list? I dont think they’re near done adding to the list. 

Yeah, from the participation list. They have a month, so it will very likely grow. But, for that amount of tickets(if they indeed plan to sell that many) they will probably need to double that list.

If they do end up with a lot of participation, it probably would be a good idea to switch to sessions in the future rather than one long event. I know GABF, the Festival of Wood and Barrel Aged Beers, Extreme Beer Fest, etc have all gone to that kind of set up. It limits the amount of people you have to swim through at each specific time and allows the breweries to ration their beer a little bit better(although also requiring that you bring more). Snallygaster, Hunaphu Day and Dark Lord Day have all turned into or been complete poo shows in the past because of allowing so many people in at one time. All still cool events but it does create a lot of chaos in that format if you have a bunch of rare beer.

[OneBadCat]

1 hour ago, kungfoodude said:

What brewery?

Twenty Six Acres. Best beers in Concord.