What the Funk!? GABF 2016

Ah yes, 2014, when the Rare Barrel line ran out the door, and Sante Adairius had absolutely no line until the very end.

Those were good times.

 

I really hope it is a shitty event again this year. I won't be there, but I will be so sad the day I no longer get to see these same three complaint posts recycling endlessly everywhere I frequent.

 

See you at Zwanze...?

 

Off topic, but we did our own Zwanze last year (#diyz) and had a blast. At-home chill bottle share > any event ever.

 

Good read, there. After this & press release, maybe we can shift scrutiny to upcoming finally now...

Here’s what to expect at the 2016 What the Funk festival:

• There’s no VIP tickets for the Oct. 4 (Tuesday) festival. All tickets are $100 (fees and taxes included) and go on sale Aug. 24 at 10 a.m. One of the complaints in 2015 was how the VIP crowd that entered an hour early and drank all the best beers before the general session began. “Everybody gets in at once,” Yakobson said.
• Fewer breweries but more beer. This year’s festival will feature about 50 breweries (see the list below), rather than the 65 or so that attended a year ago. But Yakobson assures fans that they will bring more beer this year to address the scarcity concerns.
• A bigger venue and fewer tickets. Only 800 tickets are being sold this year, a roughly 25 percent reduction from a year ago. And the venue is bigger. The event returns to the EXDO Event Center in the River North neighborhood, where it all began in 2013. The location is larger and more open, allowing for better traffic flow, and it accommodates 1,500 people.
• Early entrance for all. The festival is working on a system to get the crowd into the venue by 6 p.m. so the tasting can commence immediately. “I’ve noticed that people really like to get in and be ready,” Yakobson said. “It’s like a race. When the gun goes off, they are ready to start tasting beer.”
• Expect more international brewers. Each year, Yakobson and his crew at Crooked Stave invite the most exciting brewers on the scene to pour their beer — many of which don’t appear at GABF. This year, Yakobson is adding business partner Shelton Brothers Distributing to the mix. So the list will have a more international flare reflecting the Shelton Brothers’ portfolio of imports. And yes, Yakobson said, this means more Cantillon, the hard-to-find Belgian brewer who consistently makes some of the most sought-after beers in the world.
• No volunteers. Crooked Stave, Shelton Brothers and the breweries will staff the different tables, not volunteers this year. This addresses other complaints from a year ago.

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Early entrance for all. Has this ever been attempted? Accomplished?
Given lines at normal events/releases in this town the past year, I guess we can expect line around 4pm again...
Ideally door staff will ID & scan tix when(ever) you arrive / walk in (e.g. 5pm); this could really work well, like entering a GA concert after doors open before show starts. #optimistic

 

'Early entrance' was attempted/accomplished last time it was at EXDO. They walked through basically the entire line, and pre-scanned everyone's tickets before they entered (while still standing in line), checked id's, etc., and gave wristbands. When the time came to enter, everyone just filed in. It worked great actually.

 

How can someone gets ticket for this event? I looked around the Internet and didn't find any. There are plenty of GABF tickets for sale everywhere but didn't see a single WTF ticket so far.

 

Just went on sale today, and appear to be still available at http://www.wtfinvitational.com/

 

Oh thanks! I'm surprised it didn't sell out right away.

 

Read all of the posts before yours. There are a lot of people who have attended in the past who won't be attending this year.

Crooked Stave shot themselves in the foot locally first by canceling their membership and giving the impression that they couldn't care less about their most loyal customers/fans and those who funded a lot of their growth.

Then they shot themselves in the foot by blowing-off a huge group of people who were really upset about WTF last year. I see a trend here...

 

I really was ready to bite the bullet and give this years event a chance. Reading the details it looks like they may be trying to take the complaints to heart.

Sadly they decided to host it on a damn Tuesday??? Good for the Denver locals, not so much for all the GABF attendees who come in later that week for the fest.

 

I understand that is frustrating for a lot of folks traveling into town for GABF, but IMO it was the absolute smartest decision they could have made to eliminate some of the pressure of the event and has likely gone a long way towards keeping tickets available.

 

Either the event can support 400 people or it can't. Putting it on a Tuesday, or Thursday, or Saturday night really shouldn't make a difference logistically. If their plan is to put it on Tuesday hoping it won't sell out so they dont have any issues...they are going to be in a for a world of hurt.

 

I'm pretty sure they want the tickets to sell out. I don't know that it's highly valuable (or valuable at all) from their perspective for the tickets to sell out more slowly. It's certainly not to their benefit for the tickets to fail to sell out....

Maybe holding the event earlier in the week will lower expectations for those that attend, but I doubt it. In many ways, expectations are higher than ever for them. The key is for them to get the size of the fest right relative the the amount of beer that will be on hand. The day of the week they hold the fest on and the speed at which the tickets sell out are not going to matter in terms of putting on a good show.

I hope they succeed and I hope they move the fest back to Wednesday/Thursday next year. I really enjoyed this fest in 2014 and even kinda enjoyed it last year. This fest has always managed to pull in some amazing beers. I'm bummed I can't make it this year due to it being so early in the week but I'm looking forward to finding other things to do during my GABF trip.

 

I think I mis-phrased what I meant in my previous post insofar as I believe it could have been an attempt to focus on the hometown market, those folks who (I believe) make up the core block of purchasers for the event. In this way, it almost ensured those locals who were disappointed in last year's event had the opportunity to secure a ticket to this year's without being shut out by all the out-of-town folks. Colorado locals make up the core purchasing demographic for everything CSA related and having that kind of group pissed off can translate into a serious decline in sales.

 

That makes sense and is a fair point! Cheers. Still sucks for us non-core fans who have supported this festival historically and are effectively shut out of it this year.

 

No volunteers = No free beer = I'm out
However, CS did just send out a $20 gift card to last years volunteers. Man, they really know how to treat their volunteers

 

They know who held VIP and regular tickets last year. They should be sending those people money.

And I'm assuming you're joking.

 

Coming out Tuesday from out of town but still refuse to attend this event after last year. Worst run event I have ever attended.