The Beer Fest Guide
Guilds, breweries, and beer fans spill their secrets to beer fest success.
The Pros
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Russell Smithson
Events Executioner, Lagunitas
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Cameron Collins
Founder, OC Brew Ha Ha
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Dave McLean
President, SFBG, Founder, Magnolia Brewing
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Kelly Taylor
President, NYC Brewers Guild
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Erin Morrissey
Event Project Manager, Sierra Nevada
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Ali Bowman
Coordinator, Firestone Walker Invitational
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Behind the Bar at NYC Beer Week
Video: Meet the people behind the bar at NYC Beer Week
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The Bacon and Beer Classic
Video: What's better than bacon and beer?
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Attract More Beer Lovers to Your Fest
Insights from Firestone Walker, Brew HaHa, and more.
The Guide
Craft Your Strategy
The perfect beer fest starts with an authentic vision and love for craft beer.
For the Love of Craft Beer
Craft beer is on the rise in a big way. The rising demand for craft beer means a massive increase in beer events. But just like a perfectly-balanced lager, a successful beer fest isn’t born overnight. If you’re in it for the long haul, you need to be patient—and in it for the love of the craft. Keep a relentless focus on event quality, and the rest will follow.
Focus on event quality
If I’m working an event and I’m not upset that I couldn’t enjoy it as an attendee, then we failed. Nothing else matters. At the event, we’re not thinking about how much we’re bringing in, we’re concerned with creating a safe, enjoyable event that people will want to come back to.
Cameron, Brew Ha Ha
Be patient
It’s not the field of dreams: Just because you built it does not mean they will come. Don’t design your event for 5,000 people if you only had 2,500 people last year. It’s better to increase your event by 20% each year and sell out. You shouldn’t plan to make any money until your third year.
Cameron, Brew Ha Ha
Be part of the community
Don’t come in and put yourself in the spotlight; instead, find a way to entrench yourself in the community. It’s obvious to brewers and attendees which organizers are looking to partner with a non-profit to support the community, and which are looking to make a quick buck.
Russell, Lagunitas
Treat beer with respect
Our priority is a curated local beer selection. We want to attract people that are interested in the art of it, in the process, in the craft. Slightly higher ticket prices help keep away that crowd just looking to get drunk.
Kelly, NYCBG
Treat your Brewers Well
If you want to create a festival that leaves beer-lovers wanting more, your number one priority should be the breweries and partners you invite to participate in your events. Communicate the vision and make it easy for them to say, “yes” year after year. Give them the VIP treatment, from private bathrooms to pre-festival perks and activities.
Give the 411
Provide a clear email breaking down all the event details you have: date, time, location, licensing info, estimated attendance, it all helps! If possible include resources like a site map, day-of access to ice, and volunteers that are certified pourers. Having somebody that checks on the brewers during the event also goes a long way.
Russell, Lagunitas
It's all in the details
Your event will only succeed if you attract great breweries, so it’s important to plan the event from their perspective. That’s why we do things like the brewers’ dinner, and don’t ask them to carry ice all over an 11-acre park. We actually rent a forklift and drop off ice to each brewer on the day-of.
Cameron, Brew Ha Ha
Provide a VIP experience
We take good care of visiting brewers – we let them choose between camping and a local hotel, and include all of their meals in their stay. We also like to show them the small-town Paso Robles charm, including a wine tasting tour in their schedule of activities and an afternoon at our local water park.
Ali, Firestone Walker
Come Up with Your Concept
The first step to coming up with a killer event concept is figuring out what will resonate with your audience. And with hundreds of craft beer fests popping up every year, it’s more important than ever to find ways to make your event stand out. The most successful events draw crowds with a variety of perks, from a unique venue and interesting beer curation to great food and exceptional entertainment.
Know your audience
We really take the time to identify who are craft beer drinkers, and it’s pretty easy because we’re craft beer drinkers. We’re not trying to put on a rave, that’s not what we’re into; We know our market and that’s what we’re going to stick to.
Cameron, Brew Ha Ha
Keep the format simple
We see better sales for events that sell an all-inclusive ticket rather than asking the attendee to purchase beer or tokens. That uncertainty of what the all-in price will be with tokens seems to deter some buyers.
Sam, Eventbrite
Tailor your selection
In the Northwest, craft beer has been a “thing” a lot longer; if we bring our IPA we aren’t going to get the same response as if we bring a barrel-aged High-Westified Coffee Stout served with a scoop of free range vanilla ice-cream. In emerging markets our IPA is our most popular beer. It’s about identifying trends in the market and listening to your consumers (friends).
Russell, Lagunitas
Open it to the brewers
Brewers are a really creative group of people. If you give them a format they will fit into it, but if you can get them together for a brainstorm, they’ll have all kinds of ideas.
Kelly, NYCBG
Be different
We try to think, what are people not doing that we can try and do? Everyone brings a band. Our Beer Circus is part beer festival, part circus, part vaudevillian costume contest. You’ll see aerialists and fire-breathers get to play carnival games, it’s got a lot of elements that will leave you with a big smile on your face. Set the tone and do things that you are passionate about.
Russell, Lagunitas
Know your market
Sabroso is our craft beer taco festival. Would it work everywhere? No, but we’re in Southern California, there’s a Mexican restaurant on every corner and we’re born and raised on tacos. We do four festivals in the same area in the same year; there has to be something unique about each event.
Cameron, Brew Ha Ha
Food, Fun, & Entertainment
The focus of a beer festival has always been the beer, and it always will be. But with millennials making up an ever-growing growing percentage of craft beer drinkers, having high quality food, music, and entertainment options is becoming the standard for a successful event.
Create FOMO
Millennials are the “Coachella generation”; they’re one-upping every experience and motivated by FOMO (fear of missing out). That’s the feeling we try to create at our festivals; if you see someone playing Giant Jenga on Instagram you’re going to wish you were there.
Cameron, Brew Ha Ha
Be a tastemaker
We love bringing bands to our events that are on the rise — known but not yet known. Just like with beer, you want to create a sense of discovery and be a tastemaker; you have the opportunity to introduce people to great music, great beer, and take them on a journey with us.
Russell, Lagunitas
Provide food options
Providing food is the responsible thing to do when you have a group of people tasting beer for hours. We like to work with local restaurants and food trucks to further amplify our local messaging, and because they're also part of our food and beverage community.
Dave, SFBG
We <3 food trucks
I love food trucks because they carry their own permits from the health department. You don’t have to worry about inspections or water stations.
Cameron, Brew Ha Ha
Photo Credits: Eric Wolfinger (Bio 2), Jeremy Harris (Bio 4), Nicholas Gingold (Bio 6), Jeremy Harris (Header), Nicholas Gingold ("Treat Your Brewers," 1), Eric Wolfinger (Food, Fun, & Entertainment," 1)
Draft the Details
Get down to the who, the what, and the where of your event.
Know the Laws
The importance of making sure your event is compliant with local laws and the ABC cannot be overstated. Make sure all your legal ducks are in a row before you get started, and don’t be afraid to ask for help — nothing is worth getting your event shut down. Check out the Brewers Association beer festival checklist for more information.
Read the rulebook
My recommendation is to read the ABC rulebook, mark all the questions you have, and call the ABC and go over it with a representative point by point. As much as you might think it could be a red flag, it’s not worth it to have your event shut down.
Cameron, Brew Ha Ha
Partner with local guilds
It’s about knowing the law and that’s really the hardest part, especially when it varies so much state to state. We partner with the local brewers guilds when we’re doing events in a new market. They know the market and can help decipher local legalities.
Erin, Sierra Nevada
Find a Fantastic Venue
There’s no perfect formula for choosing your event venue, but interviewing locals and checking out other events happening in the food and drink space is a great place to start. Go to a local coffee festival or whiskey tasting, and take note of the load-in area and how the space is laid out.
Accessibility = safety
Can people get to your festival via public transportation? If it’s a site without a lot of access, remember to build in the cost of shuttle buses to get people there.
Erin, Sierra Nevada
Check out the load-in
A space that is easy to load in and out of makes a big difference. Trying to hand truck a keg over a mountain is a lot harder than being able to pull your truck right up.
Russell, Lagunitas
Showcase your city
We don’t necessarily want to go to the place where everybody does a beer festival. We really like to go to places that showcase the host city. We want that instant identification, that "WOW" factor.
Erin, Sierra Nevada
Grass > concrete
I love grass, because glass doesn’t break on grass...and I hate concrete because it does. Plus, it’s 40% more shock-absorbent when you walk on grass rather than concrete; you feel more fatigued if you’re walking around on concrete for hours.
Cameron, Brew Ha Ha
Build a Badass Team
Whether you’re on a team of one or one hundred, you’re going to need help on event day. Invest in your event staff and reward your volunteers. Finding partners that you can trust is key to a successful beer event.
Partner with a charity
A lot of our beer festivals partner with charitable organizations for volunteer staffing. For example, One Brick provides volunteers and, in exchange, the festival gives a portion of each ticket to the charity.
Kelly, Eventbrite
Hire a logistics person
Hire someone who will be able to focus on the logistics; from coordinating load ins and outs to providing ice and jockey boxes. Be clear up-front with what their responsibilities are and build their fee into the ticket price. I’ve found about $5 a head to be reasonable.
Kelly, NYCBG
Know when to hire pros
Volunteers are great, but for some tasks, it’s important to make sure things will be done right, and done with accountability. If you are charging people to come to your event, you have a certain level of responsibility to provide a top-notch experience.
Dave, SFBG
Help sponsors see value
As a business, deciding how to deploy marketing and sponsorship money can be tough to figure out. We try to make sure everyone gets great value in the form of logo visibility, social media outreach, public thanks, etc., and by putting on events that connect with the public in positive ways.
Dave, SFBG
Sponsors are part of your team
At the NYC Beer Week opening party, instead of putting bottled water in a corner, we had a coconut water sponsor working the room; that added a lot value to the event. We want sponsors that will be involved and engaged, and not just slap a logo on the site.
Kelly, NYCBG
Beer Math and Event Logistics
When it comes to things like ice and bathrooms, the more the better. Nothing ruins an alehead’s day like a gross bathroom or foamy beer. Beer math is both an art and a science; develop a system that works for you based on your event format and crowd.
Don’t skimp
Buy more ice and port-a-potties than you think you’ll need. When beer gets warm you pour foam, you’ll end up under-pouring or over-pouring and wasting beer. And there’s nothing that will ruin a girl’s time like walking into a gross port-a-potty. We do separate women’s bathrooms, because guys tend to be messier.
Cameron, Brew Ha Ha
Have a beer buffer
We inventory and weigh every keg between sessions. We know exactly how much beer we went through, which will help with next year’s planning. I want to have about a 20% buffer. We’ve developed a formula for how much beer we’ll need, we never want more than 6-10 people in line at one time.
Cameron, Brew Ha Ha
Seriously, get a lot of ice
We used 272,000 lbs (136 tons) of ice in 2012 at GABF. With 2,774 beers on the floor and four sessions, that’s an average of about 25 lbs of ice per beer, per four hour session. We keep the kegs in ice/melted water overnight, then drain the tubs and re-ice at the beginning of each session. More Details.
Brewers Association
Build Buzz
Now it’s time to get beer-lovers thirsty for your event.
Create Your Event Page
After all of your hard work planning, it’s time to get the word out to the craft community. The first step is creating an event page so you can start selling tickets. Write a compelling, SEO-optimized event description that reflects your event’s personality and theme. Share the brewery and food line-up—even if it’s tentative. Need more help? Check out this article on how to craft a great page.
Optimize your event page
A lot of SEO value is based on having relevant keywords in your event title and and on your event page. In addition to giving your event a short and catchy name, include at least a word or two in the title and description that could be used to search for your event.
Sarah, Eventbrite
Invest in your page design
We’ve taken the approach that design details are one of the several ways to set events apart from the pack. They also help to create an immersive experience, where guests and brewers feel like we’ve got all of the details covered. View More Event Page Tips.
Dave, SFBG
Start Selling Tickets
Take your event page live and watch the ticket sales roll in. We asked a few of our own beer festival experts to share their tips for maximizing ticket sales on Eventbrite.
Consider a pre-sale
A great way to boost early sales is holding a members or friends and family pre-sale. On Eventbrite you can create a hidden ticket type and instruct pre-sale members to use their email or membership number as a code.
Sam, Eventbrite
Have a VIP option
Our early entry ticket holders are allowed in an extra hour and get to try the beers without the crowds. We give 100% of those sales to the Marine Corps Scholarship Fund and it makes the attendees and those involved in planning feel good about the higher price tag. Attendees want value, make it worth the ticket price!
Ali, Firestone Walker
Fight the hockey stick
Ticket sales are going to spike about 2 weeks before the event — we call it the hockey stick. We recommend having an early bird ticketing option and having tickets be more expensive on the day of the event to incentivize online ticket sales.
Kelly, Eventbrite
Send Email Invitations
Now that your event page live, it’s time to get the word out. Eventbrite’s Mailchimp integration allows you to upload your contact database or send invitations to attendees of a past event. You can also create beautifully designed invitations and pages with the help of the 99 Designs and Event Kingdom tools in your Eventbrite dashboard.
Leverage co-marketing
Get on your partners’ email blasts where it makes sense. We found that our sponsors and event partners have been a great source of marketing, because we can take advantage of their following. We saw a lot of traffic come from our email promotion with partners like Eventbrite and Whole Foods.
Kelly, NYCBG
Have something to say
The determining factor for when to send an email is having something to say so we aren’t just filling people’s inboxes. We like to announce the event and its ticket on-sale date and then send out updates when there are newsworthy updates like new breweries added.
Dave, SFBG
Market to the right crowd
One thing we’ve never done is discount our tickets or work with a deal site. We only advertise at local breweries that are participating; we don’t advertise to the bar crowd. As a result, we have high quality people at our events that love craft beer.
Cameron, Brew Ha Ha
Get the Word Out
Arm partners with everything they need to draw their followers your event, and use social media to reach a bigger audience.
Give breweries a toolkit
Give the guilds and brewers themselves the tools they need to talk about your event, like pre-packaged flyers and emails. We also give them a social media toolkit with images, dates, and ways to easily talk about it on their social media channels.
Erin, Sierra Nevada
Don’t forget traditional media
Promotions on TV and radio are still relevant – and donating tickets to your local college radio station can earn you thousands of free advertising dollars! If you can get a station to advertise your festival for a month in exchange for a booth at the fest, you will save marketing dollars and reach new audiences simultaneously.
Brewers Association
Make it social
Enable social sharing on your event page so guests can easily share your event with friends. We’ve found that on average, each Facebook share about your event leads to an additional $4.15 in sales. Create a short and sweet event hashtag, and encourage guests to share photos.
Sarah, Eventbrite
Find social specialists
We always include the menu in the email that goes out, and I try to write it in a way that people can really imagine the experience. Minimal menu descriptions work at a restaurant because people are already there and just need to choose, but in this case, you need to convince people to pay for something that they don’t know anything about.
Kelly, NYCBG
Photo Credits: Nicholas Gingold ("Get the Word Out," 2)
Execute the Event
Bottoms up! It's the big day, and time for all your hard work to pay off.
Entry Management
Remember, to your attendees, time is BEER. Their experience at the gate will set the tone for the rest of the event, so make sure you’re prepared for any hiccups. You can use the Eventbrite Organizer app to track sales, sell tickets at the door, and check-in guests—all from your smart phone. For more tips, check out these best practices from our expert field ops team.
Be prepared
The vast majority of the crowd arrives at or before the opening time, and the gate is hit with a peak entry period with everyone trying to come in at once. It’s really important to have enough lanes and an area for media check-ins that can handle any problems. Eventbrite has helped a lot in this area for us with on-site consulting and renting us fast scanners.
Dave, SFBG
Have a back-up
When we create the on-site plan, we create contingency plans several levels deep. You need a back-up plan if internet or power goes down, especially if you have a significant number of walk-up sales and your event is in a remote location.
Jerod, Eventbrite
Pre-work the line
We’ve noticed that people tend to show up early because they don’t want their favorite beer to run out. We process people right when they show up and put them into a secure holding area. When the gates open they are already wrist-banded, ID checked, and scanned.
Erin, Sierra Nevada
Security, security, security
The biggest bottleneck is typically going to be security. Security serves two roles – a bag and item check and an ID check, which are both time-consuming. Our most common recommendation is to beef up security.
Jerod, Eventbrite
Your gate manager is critical
Have one gate manager dedicated to taking any and all escalations, and making quick, real-time decisions. The person should be knowledgeable about the equipment and how the organizer views success. Is it maximizing revenue? Preventing fraud? Having someone that will make the tough calls of when to let an attendee through is really valuable.
Jerod, Eventbrite
Prep volunteers
It’s better to train volunteers on entry an hour before the event rather than the day before, so they’re holding the scanner and know exactly what to do before the event starts. Prep volunteers with FAQs and what to do if the attendee lost or has an invalid ticket.
Jerod, Eventbrite
Execute the Event
A big reason people go to craft beer events is to interact with the makers of their favorite beers. Set up opportunities for attendees to connect with brewers, and give them a chance to pick up swag while you’re at it. Be diligent about clean up, and most importantly, don’t forget to crack a celebratory cold one at the end of night with your team.
Set yourself up for success
Be really detailed and organized about pre-event information like load-in and load-out details. Have everything planned out and set up in advance of arrival like tables, dump buckets, pitchers for water, and ice—and make sure you have a refill plan too.
Dave, SFBG
Have distractions
It’s important to have other alternatives to drinking. If you’re playing Giant Jenga or lifesize foosball, you’re taking a break from drinking while still getting to experience the event.
Cameron, Brew Ha Ha
Have ice on stand-by
Make sure there is plenty of water and food on hand and have a source standing by to get more ice during the event if needed.
Erin, Sierra Nevada
Let ‘em meet the makers
People love to talk to the person behind the beer. We try and encourage the actual brewers and owners to attend.
Erin, Sierra Nevada
Sell merchandise
Every single person at a festival has a brewery T-shirt on. You’ll never have more of an opportunity to sell your swag then when you have a few thousand people at a festival who are exactly your target audience.
Cameron, Brew Ha Ha
Leave no trace
Our sustainability considerations include reducing unnecessary promotional materials, using corn-based cups and compostable food utensils, and offering 5-gallon water dispensers instead of plastic water bottles.
Brewers Association
After the Event
The event’s over! Take the time to get feedback, you’ll always have a way to make your event better. Listen to what your attendees and partners have to say, and look at your ticket sales and check-in data. Your Eventbrite dashboard can give you valuable information about who was there—and how you can reach them for your next event.
Have a robust debrief process
We do a brewer survey to get their feedback on the experience. We also assess ticket sales, debrief our process, and evaluate all the contractors we work with. We document everything so that next time around we have a lot of information to build on.
Erin, Sierra Nevada
Use your check-in data
In the Eventbrite dashboard under “Event Reports” you can see the ebbs and flows of your check-ins to inform future staffing decisions. You can also see scans by device — if they are skewing towards one or two devices, ask yourself why so that you can better balance the scanning process next time.
Jerod, Eventbrite
Cheers! Kick back, relax… and have a beer!
Ask your attendees for feedback
We’ve used Eventbrite for the past two years so now we have some really interesting data that we can work with. Eventbrite has Survey Monkey built right into the dashboard so it’s easy to ask people what beer they liked, what activations they remembered, and what vendors and sponsors to bring back.
Kelly, NYCBG
Photo Credits: Andria Lo (Header)
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