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Last Saturday, ACB attended Snallygaster 2013 in Washington, DC, and in spite of its huge crowds, the event was a blast and ran smoothly. An attentive and involved staff oversaw everything. They were always on hand to answer questions, direct the festive masses towards their favorite beers, and make sure that nothing got out of hand. As we wrote earlier this week, Snallygaster was a craft beer experience done right….Unfortunately, that’s not always the case.
There was another craft beer festival that happened last weekend that showed what can take place when an event is not as carefully crafted as Snallygaster – and those results apparently weren’t pretty. The Ultimate Beerfest OC, a two-session beer festival that took place last Saturday at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Southern California, reportedly got so out of control that officials were forced to shut down the second session.
The Daily Pilot quotes fairground officials as placing the blame on “inadequate staffing levels at vendor booths and checkpoints, excessive consumption and not following necessary beverage-management protocols,” for the festival’s problems and cited its promoter, the ironically named Karma Media Group, as not being “readily responsive” to “operating deficiencies.”
Okay, let’s see if we’re getting all this right. Officials are saying there weren’t enough people hired to serve beer (at a craft beer event!) in a timely manner…And yes, we can see how that situation might inevitably lead to long lines and pissed-off patrons.
Officials also cited excessive consumption as an issue …and again, we’re not surprised. As many of us who attend craft beer festivals regularly know, people come to these things to drink – and many can drink too much. But a festive crowd doesn’t necessarily or automatically turn into an unruly crowd if an event is adequately and professionally staffed and situations (should they arrise) attentively handled. And the fact that things got out of control at this festival speaks to the overall tone set by the event’s promoters, as well as to (if we are to believe the fairground’s officials) mismanagement on their part.
The newspaper went on to say that as of Tuesday afternoon, their calls to the event’s promoters for comment had not been returned but that festival promoters had set up a dedicated page on their website to allow for refunds and that they were hoping to reschedule the session 2 event at a different venue soon.
