4th Annual Collaboration Beer Fest

As far as bands at beer fests, I have only one experience... Beertopia in Fort Mill, SC a few weeks ago.

They mainly played 80s-00s pop/rock covers, which going in made me cringe. When it came down to it, they only played for about 2/3 of the event, not overly loud (my biggest concern with music I don't wanna hear), and were actually a tight band.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised to feel like they complimented the overall experience of the event.

 

I don't care if Electric Wizard and a reformed Kyuss came together to play Sabbath covers, I just don't care for live music at events like this. Especially knowing that 9/10 of the audience wouldn't care or like it. If you need some sort of ambient noise, just toss someone's phone on Spotify and just play "best of the 90's" or something like that.

 

Great Divide pulls it off pretty well.. just sayin.

 

Ska brewing b day parties have killer music though.

 

I think my issue with that is that it's totally in the eye of the beholder. I don't like Ska music or anything headed down that path. They could bring back Operation Ivy for the night and I wouldn't care. Not my thing. Just like a ton of people would head for the hills before listening to what I like. When music you don't like is playing, it becomes annoying. Especially if it's loud.

That said, I would say that outdoor events are a bit different than indoor ones. At least as long as there is space. Breck and GD have both had good events with bands playing. Both have also been less than ideal when their spaces were more limited. Even at their most crowded, at least you could hear the people next to you. If they had been indoors...not so much.

 

This pretty much happened at Dark Lord Day last year and it was probably my favorite Dark Lord Day moment of my life.

 

I forgot I went to the Ska birthday party last fall. That was really fun... lots of space and over half of it you weren't getting music blared at you. An incredible amount of great and smaller NM breweries were there and that was a very nice treat!

I think @Domingo is correct about the outdoor nature of things making it more suitable... Indoor beer fest with live band sounds awful.