Is Extreme Beer Fest over?

I enjoyed the virtual beerfests held with a live video component. I’m sure the audience for those has also declined in recent years, but that the cost is also much smaller. Any thoughts about doing a live virtual fest again?

 

The costs of everything re a festival/group party have not just gone up, they've skyrocketed up. My annual beer bash became dust for me a few years ago due to cost. In 2008 it cost $100 per head to attend. Now it's $275. Plus merch costs extra. No can do. The event repeats itself annually because it makes a profit (at least that's the goal) and that's a built in part of the scheme. But for me it's simply too much now for all things & variables considered.

 

The last one in the cyclormama was great. My first taste of Mortalis. I think smaller events like that would work best with less risk on your end.

 

"The majority of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck (at best) and consumer spending is on the decline"
- That's all you read about. How consumers aren't spending on festivals and concerts and the like.

SF Beer Week is going on right now and they had an opening day festival/gala a week ago that seemed pretty well attended. Tix were certainly expensive, but GA at $90 versus what like $70-75 for EBF in 2020 isn't that crazy. And that's SF. Hold EBF in Worcester to cut costs.

 

I think bringing EBF back would have to be marketed as some type of premium/whale type of fest with $150-$200+ tickets but such an amazing lineup of breweries/beers that it would still be a good value proposition. The amount of attendees of the pre-pandemic fests would be hard to replicate, so I think a higher margin but smaller fest might be able to work.

 

Logging in just to say that attending EBF every year was an annual highlight for my group of friends. Would 100% be excited for us to return to descending on Boston every February. Or somewhere else at some other time.

 

Yes, I will go to Finland.