Great Taste 2015

This is a bit disappointing to me. To me, if you really want to go, you put the time in line to get the tickets. I understand there are those the strictly go to the ticket release to try and turn a profit. I for one use my tickets. And as far as the lottery system is concerned, even with the old school system, it's the best way to keep ticket brokers from abusing the system, short of requiring names on tickets.

IMHO this is the best run festival in the Midwest, hands down. It can't be easy to do handle tickets the way they do, but I think they are doing a great job getting tickets to as many actual beer loves as possible.

 

I agree and the biggest thing they are concerned about are the business owners and residents of Madison, which is legitimate. If more and more people start lining up the night before, it is going to cause stress on the businesses that sell the tickets and the individuals that live around those businesses that dont have interest in the event.

I always hope that things stay the way they are because I know I will get a ticket. I would even rather have them sell tickets in some field out in the middle of nowhere just to avoid pissing people off.

 

As someone who represents one of those businesses, I'll go on record and say we enjoy hosting the sales. There's a good group of people that get there super early every year, and the line is always friendly and respectful. I imagine that to be the case at most, if not all venues. Hopefully it's not a neighborhood complaint issue, but I remember waiting at Wine and Hop Shop one year and the line snaked back into the residential area. A kid probably 5 years old popped his head out the door, and came back out a half hour later with brownies and cups of lemonade for sale. The best.

 

Definitely don't wanna see any changes, especially to any system with randomness. I really like things the way they are because I know that if I didn't get there in time, that's my own fault. Drank a ton of good beer in line this year and last year. Line-waiting is part of beer nowadays, like it or not, but I certainly don't wanna inconvenience "civilians" or the businesses kind enough to host.

 

One trait I will never share with fellow BAs is a willingness to put up with (heck, an eagerness to embrace) lines. Call me an unrepentant capitalist, but give me price rationing over queuing any day. MHTG, just charge $100 (or $90 or $150 or whatever the market clearing price turns out to be) instead of $60, and almost everybody who’s willing to pay face value will get tickets without lines or lotteries and at their leisure. I love the event itself, but I’d rather pay $100 in a simple way to MHTG than to some scalper that I have to waste time tracking down (or get up early and wait in line for four hours for the right to pay $60, as if my time is worth only $10 an hour). To paraphrase an earlier contention, to me, if you really want to go, you put the money in to get the tickets.

 

Making it about money rather than time will just validate/increase scalpers, IMO.

 

If MHTG were to price the tickets properly, there would be no profit margin for scalpers. People simply would purchase directly from MHTG because tickets wouldn't sell out until just before the event if at all. Also, I have no problem with scalpers. They serve a vital function in getting tickets to those who want them in a shortage. They're my only chance to go this year since I struck out in the lottery. I would rather not have to deal with them because the transaction costs (including tracking the seller down and meeting to exchange money for tickets) are high, and there's some risk that the seller gives you fake tickets or stands you up at the last minute. The secondary market is an inevitable result of underpricing, and it represents a transfer of value from MHTG to scalpers with no benefit (and in fact additional transactions costs) to the consumers who didn't receive the windfall of underpriced tickets. MHTG probably is leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table every year by pricing their tickets at inefficiently low levels. That's money it could use to make the festival even better, further fund other MHTG operating expenses, or give to charity.

 

While it would be nice to be able to get legitimate tickets right up until the event, jacking up the price to $100 just means my wife will never let me go again . So, boo on that idea....

 

Not only that, but most of us don't live between the hard covers of an economics textbook. The real world has never worked like that, & never will. Economic theory is precisely that.

I for one appreciate that MHTG hasn't jacked the price into the stratosphere to satisfy some weird urge to "right-price" their tickets, inevitably price out the college students who show up in droves, & squeeze every wooden nickel out of every single festival goer. And it's a better festival for it (though I'm not sure you could measure that with a slide ruler).

 

Just keep the IP tickets available for locals at a reasonable price - sell the "lottery" tickets online at a higher pric. Win/Win - I know Madison got a lot of my money last year with the food hotel and Friday night escapades! I wish there were more festivals of this caliber here in the Midwest...

 

Since we are still ~8 weeks out from the GTMW (so specific discussion related to the fest itself is somewhat lacking) and we've started the conversation on how tickets could be better done, I'd like to keep that conversation going.

So under the rules that they aren't going to allow more than 6,000 paid tickets (ignoring those they give to the brewers and other homebrew clubs) into the fest at a time (as long as the fest is at Olin-Turville), what would everyone do differently?

 

I personally think the way they do it is perfect. If you must have tickets you can drive and wait in line, if you simply would like to go the gamble is kind of fun. Or raise the price to stabalize the demand, which would suck.

 

I'd keep doing it exactly like they're doing it as well. My only suggested improvement would be to try to do more (hand out tickets as people arrive, etc.) to prevent line jumpers at the in person sales. Otherwise the in person sales and lottery are better than any alternative I can see.

 

From an attendee perspective, the way tickets are currently handled is near-ideal, IMHO – the only change I would make is to put stronger measures in place to stop cutting in line, which has been a serious problem at some locations.

From a purely selfish standpoint, I wish they'd cut the number of tickets back to 5,000 or increase the amount of space at the park or both. The last few years (since the bump to 6,000) almost all the issues we've encountered at the event itself have been a direct result of overcrowding.

 

If they really are looking into doing something different for tickets, i bet it is because the lines are getting ridiculous. Sure you control your own destiny in the sense that if you didnt get tickets then that just means you need to get there earlier next year. But there has to be some sort of limit to the lines. People are already getting in line like 24 hours in advance and i could see this being an issue for the ticket locations. Do you think they want people hanging out in front of the store all day on saturday? Probably not. Every year the lines begin earlier and this has to annoy the store owners a bit.

 

I'm sorry but I can't believe that I'm reading all these comment about how the ticket prices should be increased to a point that anyone willing to pay the price could attend the festival. Money doesn't entitle someone to anything that they want and I think it's depressing to see people not attend the festival because of the price of the ticket now.

If you are in-town couple it's already a $300-$400 weekend, out of town is an easy $1000....

The festival was built by people that enjoyed beer having a fun weekend in Madison, not by people that defined their worth by the zeros in a paycheck...

 

Not to nit-pick, just curious, but how is it a $300-$400 weekend for an in-town couple?

 

Yea and how is it a grand for an out of town couple. Hotel and Tickets was less than $400.

 

Right or Wrong it absolutley does. Look at sport ticket prices. Concert Tickets. the list could go on and on. Any time there is more desire than avalibility cost is the deciding factor.

 

Just got both of my entries back today....