Dark Lord Day History Thread

So I doubt anyone still posting was there in 2004, but from what I can tell, it actually occurred in March (or earlier) of that year.

I found a blog post of a guy claiming he had 12 bottles of Dark Lord stolen along with his truck on 3/22/2004, which means it came out before that, he said he was in the Chicago area the week before that, so either DLD occurred sometime during that week, or Dark Lord was so plentiful that he was able to buy 12 bottles at the brewery at that time.

Google is failing me on finding any information.

 

few more to add to the guest tap list for 2015

Saint John Malt Bros - Triple Threat
Saint John Malt Bros - Belmageddon
The Answer - Petty Larceny

 

Attendance by year:

These are just rough estimates, based on news articles, number of tickets sold etc..

2004: ~50
2005: ~100-200
2006: 500-1000
2007: 2,000-3,000
2008: 4,500-5,000
2009: 7,000 (4,000 tickets sold)
2010: 10,000 - 12,000 (~8,000 tickets)
2011: 6,000 (6,000 tickets sold, fence and bar-coded tickets kept out others from attending).
2012: 6,000 (6,000 tickets)
2013: 9,000 (9,000 tickets)
2014: 7,500-10,000 (Estimated 7-8,000 Group Tickets, 2,000 GA tickets)
2015: 12,000 (Estimated 8,000 Group Tickets, 4,000 GA tickets)

 

2006 - More information

Allotment: 6 bottles.
Attendance: 500-1000
Date: Saturday, April 29th
Open at Noon (sold out around 5 pm) but you could stay all night as late as the brewpub was open.

Event announcement:

Barrel Aged Dark Lord was $6 for a draft, limit one per person. Other drafts $4.
Raffle tickets were $5 a ticket, could win a bottle of 2005 Woodford Reserve Barrel Aged Dark Lord (3 bottles raffled off)
$10 for a BBQ Plate.

Interesting Quote from a forum:

Only image I found:

 

2007 - More Information

Line lasted from noon until about 4pm, many people were going through line twice to get double allotments. No real line formed until 11.

Date: Saturday April 28, 2007
Attendance: 2-3 thousand
Allotment: 6 bottles per person
Variants: Barrel Aged Dark Lord

Event Announcement:

Only about 300 people there around 10:30am bottle sharing, brewery doors opened around noon and everyone started lining up in a big mob like line around 11:30. Time in line varied from 1-2 hours to 4 hours depending on when you got there.

Dark Lord Day 2007 Album

 

I have been looking for that video too. It was produced by Voom HD. It was hosted on Blip, here was the link back when it was live: http://blip.tv/play/g4dI9vc3AA.m4v

However that link is long dead.

Here was the blurb posted on darklordday.com along with the video:

 

2008 - More Information

Date: Saturday April 26th 11Am-10:30pm
Allotment: 6 per person, allotment was cut to 1 per person late in the day before selling out.
Attendance: 4,500 - 5,000
Variants: Oak Aged Dark Lord, Vanilla Bean Dark Lord
Weather: 50 degrees, sunny and windy.
Notable FFF beers available to go: Hvedegoop
Food: dark lord sausage loaded with carmelized onions

Main story from this year was that there were still tons of people in line who had waited 5 hours when it sold out. Beer sold out around 4 or 4:30 pm. Also, this was the first year Vanilla Bean was available on draft.

Unlike previous years where people were primarily bottle sharing and just hanging out in the morning, this was the first year people legitimately just got in a huge line early in the morning. Prior to 2008, people just hung out until around 11:00 or 11:30 and then got in line just before sales. This year started the trend of getting in line as soon as you arrive. But with several thousands more people, that was probably inevitable. People near the front of the line arrived as early as 5am. DLD veterans were a little baffled by the line, wondering why people would get in line when DLD is about bottle sharing the tasting tables.

Because of the huge turnout, as the day progressed word was going around that the allotment would be cut from 6, to 4, to 2, to 1. However it sounds like allotment was cut straight from 6 down to 1 right before selling out late in the afternoon. Estimated 500-1000 people still in line that missed out on beer after waiting 5 hours.

Porta potties were reportedly overflowing as well.

After the event there was a large influx of bottles listed on eBay, this seems to be the first year that re-selling on eBay became a big issue.

Event announcement:

Notice all the improvements they mention to improve the event, unfortunately the turn out must have been even larger than they anticipated because for many people, 2008 is remembered as one of the worst run Dark Lord Days. FFF decided to move to a ticket based system for 2009.

Some of the guest drafts:

Dark Lord Day 2008 Album

 

2009 - More Information

Date: April 25, 2009 11:00 AM
Allotmnet: 4 bottles per ticket (two tickets per person)
Attendance: 7,000 (4,000 tickets sold)
Variants: Oak Aged Dark Lord, Vanilla Bean Dark Lord
Other notable FFF beers for sale: Popskull
Weather: 68-70 degrees, clear at times, cloudy and scattered thunderstorms at times. Cold and rain late in the day.

Bottle sales for ticket holders were from 11:00AM until 6:00PM after which they would open up bottle sales to anyone. Around 4-5 pm they started selling more Golden Tickets to anyone to get a Dark Lord allotment. The Dark Lord bottle sales line moved much faster this year.

This was the first year they required Golden Tickets to get your Dark Lord allotment, I posted all the information regarding ticket sales in another post so I won't go over it again here. One nice thing is that your Golden Ticket came with a free pour of Dark Lord, you just had to show your ticket, they would punch it and give you the draft. I believe you could also pay $5 to upgrade to a Oak Aged or Vanilla Bean Dark lord.

Because it got a little cold and rainy late in the day the crowd thinned out, you could walk right up and buy your bottles before the 6 pm cutoff with no-line. So really no need to wait in line if you had tickets (counterfeits weren't an issue yet this year).

Some of the food options:

- Mussels steamed in Gumballhead with bacon, fennel, celery, garlic, and dried chili
- Pulled Pork Sandwich with Coleslaw

Some notable FFF drafts available:

2008 Dark Lord
2008 Vanilla Bean Dark Lord
2008 Oak Aged Dark Lord
FFF Banana Split Seven-Inch (collab with Publican)
FFF Devil's Handshake
FFF Slave Princess (pretty sure this is a Dark Lord parti gyle brew)
FFF Omeganaught
FFF Hyena
FFF Black Sun

Dark Lord Day 2009 Album

 

2010 - More Information

Date: Saturday April 24, 2010 (10 AM - 8 PM, bottle sales started at 11)
Allotment: 4 per ticket, cut to 3 per ticket later in the afternoon.
Attendance: 10,000 - 12,000 (estimated 8,000 tickets sold)
Variants: Oak Aged Dark Lord, Vanilla Bean Dark Lord,
Weather: 65 degrees and overcast.
Other notable FFF beers for sale: 2009 Dark Lord was available, you could substitute one if your allotted 2010 bottles for a 2009.

This was the year of two lines and counterfeit tickets. For some reason people lined up from the south and the north this year, this caused much confusion as to if you were in the correct line. There were no workers or event staff organizing the line or providing any information. The two lines converged once they reached the 3 Floyds parking lot and combined with the lines for Guest taps and Dark Lord drafts it created lots of confusion in the parking lot. You would get in a line without knowing what exactly you were waiting for.

Counterfeit tickets meant there was not enough Dark Lord to give everyone their allotted 4 bottles. They continued to honor counterfeit tickets, but had to cut the allotment from 4 to 3 around 3pm in the afternoon.

Event announcement:

Guest Tap list:

Dark Lord Day 2010 Album

 

I believe it was Starbucks coffee in the first few years, then Intelligentsia in all batches until 2014 when they switched to Dark Matter.

2006-2013 were for sure Intelligentsia.

I have never seen the 2004-2005 bottles to confirm what coffee they used. I did find a review from 2005 on BA mentioning Starbucks coffee was used, but the review didn't specify which vintage.