Boycott Beer Fests!

Not all beer fests, of course. We just wanted to get your attention.

The Bad
The aim of this rant is fests that take advantage of brewers. How so? We’ve found that far too many organizers in the world are still doing the following:

• Demanding “donated” (aka free) beer.
• Charging a booth fee—usually at least $200, but we’ve seen as high as $400.
• Creating a “wash” scenario, in which the booth fee is waived for free beer, even if it doesn’t add up.
• Using charity as a crutch and marketing ploy to pull on heart-strings, stating that “a portion of the proceeds goes to benefit [insert charity].” Then they ask brewers to donate their beer to the event, as it’s a charity event, when in reality just an often unknown “portion” is going toward charity.
• Wrapping all of this in “I’m offering you exposure” bullshit, which assumes that the value of the brewer being at their fest is greater than the value of their time, beer and costs of attendance. While brewers do get great exposure at some fests, in our experience the total costs to attend often do not match this exposure. Many brewers attend for the fun of it, and to meet and greet with their loyal fans.

The Good
Exceptions to all of this are nonprofit organizations that use 100 percent of the proceeds to benefit a charity or the beer industry. These events will often charge a fee and request donated beer, and it makes sense, as they’re essentially trying to raise money versus spend it. Definitely support these events.

We feel our BeerAdvocate fests are a good model. Since day one, there’ve been no booth fees and we offer to pay for all of the beer. We even host special Friday sessions that allow brewers to enjoy the fest from the other side of the booth—entry, beer, food and hydration are on us. And depending on the theme of the fest, we’ll spend anywhere from $20,000 to $35,000 on beer alone—our last Belgian Beer Fest was $35,000. Simple math will show you that that’s over a quarter of our gross profit! When you figure in all of the other costs, it’s clear that we host our events for fun, the attendees, and to support the industry—not to get rich off of its blood, sweat and tears. Sure, we make a bit of cash, but this allows us to do what we do and nothing more.

The way we look at it is that we organizers are asking brewers and their staff to take precious time away from work and their personal lives in order to attend an event that we’re making money on. On top of this, there are raw costs and time that go into every bottle and keg, and costs to get the beer to the event. This should be recognized and compensated with cold hard cash to support the brewery and industry, so we pay for the beer and don’t charge a booth fee in order to help offset other costs that the brewery might incur for attending our event. And we’re constantly looking at ways we can do more.

Take a Stance
So unless a beer event is paying for the beer and not charging booth fees, we ask all of you to not support it. Otherwise you’re attending an event that doesn’t support brewers and paying to drink free beer, while someone is getting fat off the proceeds.

Attendees: If you question an event, take a look at the attending breweries and ask one them what the deal was to attend. If it’s not good, spread the word.

Brewers: Just say no.

Fest organizers: Respect brewers.

Respect Beer. ■