Wicked Weed cancels July Funkatorium Invitational

Apparently, everyone is so butt hurt over the AB-Inbev purchase of Wicked Weed, they decided to punish all the families that depend on Eblen Charities.

 

I wouldn't be surprised to see another brewery spearhead something similar in the future.

 

“Wicked Weed cancels July Funkatorium Invitational”

Given the recent announcements that over 40 independent craft breweries pulled out of this event my thought was: when will Wicked Weed announce that they will cancel this event? That question is now answered.

Cheers!

 

Article say the invitational netted the charity $40,000 last year. Maybe, just maybe, the Wicked Weed folks made enough off the sale that they could scrape up enough to donate that amount.

 

I'm sure if you write to Wicked Weed's former owners and to InBev with the suggestion, between them they can more than cover a donation meeting or exceeding what the event would have raised. I'd be sort of surprised if they aren't doing that already.

 

This might be part of a larger conversation but just how beneficial are these fundraising events/beerfests for a cause? Aside from the 'feel-good' aspect, it doesn't seem like $10k (or 4 times that amount) would go very far in even the most shoestring of organizations.

 

According to the article in my below link, there may be a "counter" festival inthe works that will benefit the Eblen charities.

http://beerstreetjournal.com/counter-wild-festival/

 

I work for an NPO that serves families. $10k is a major gift and I wouldn't minimize its loss. Hopefully WW and/or Inbev makes it right with a large donation and hopefully Eblen gets some good marketing and publicity out of an unfortunate situation.

 

JK wrote a $1k check straight to Eblen. I think other breweries are or will be doing the same.

 

Regardless of sale- that's a large sum for business of WW's size to toss around at one time for charitable donation I'd think.

Doable, maybe. But it's still a stretch regardless of how the masses think they wipe their asses with $100 bills these days.

 

Lesson learned.Don't sell out before an event.

 

I don't mean to downplay the amount by any means. I was thinking in terms of how far 10k would go in terms of paying rent & salaries, as well as the larger conversation around just how much money raised by charitable festivals (beer- and otherwise) actually make it to the recipient orgs. I'm hoping more folks follow Jester King's lead on this one.

 

'We're Funk'd Weekend' + Big Guns Beer

http://southborough.wickedlocal.com...nut-springdale-to-host-were-funkd-sour-stroll

http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2017/05/11/night-shift-springdale-bring-were-funkd-weekend-july-8/

 

The largest beerfest in my town is put on by these folks: http://www.maxhigbee.org/ . I volunteer at the fest every year, and this year the event cleared $145k for the charity. Which is about half of their yearly budget. Well organized and run events can make some nice money. My town is roughly the same size as Asheville, so I'm a bit surprised they're only taking in $10-40k/year.

 

I believe it was only "profits" that were donated. I am surprised that for such a charitable event that they are not asking for only money to cover travel + base cost of beer (marginal cost of having produced those 10 kegs, let's say). I agree - 10K seems pretty low. With the hella expensive VIP passes this year, there certainly should have been more proceeds raised this year.

 

This makes me feel a little better about the various beer festivals I've attended and volunteered at!