GABF 2013: Which brewers got locked out?

While this is lousy for those that missed out, I'm also not sure of an easy fix. You don't want it to be an "old boys club" kind of situation where upstarts can't get a spot. Those medals mean a lot when trying to get people in the door. Then again - it sucks when big names miss out and there are places serving 1-2 premises-only beers in the middle of nowhere...or 20 different Rock Bottom/Ram/BJ's booths, too.
They could make it bigger, but that sounds almost crazy considering how massive it already is. Dividing it up into different parts of the convention center either regionally or by number of years attending might be an option though. Not sure I like dividing the days up. I certainly don't want to have to buy multiple tickets just to try different items. You know they'd intentionally divide things to maximize ticket sales, too.
GABF is just a crazy, crazy event no matter what they plan to do with it.

 

IDGAF anymore. I will go to a day or two, or three, someway somehow...wear pretzel necklaces...be the only guy in the room with a beard...and have a really good time drinking some great beer. I will also be completely contradictory and bitch to no end should it please me to do so at some point WHAT IN THE FLYING F*CK HOW DOES ROCKY MOUNTAIN BREWING NOT GET IN FOR THE SECOND F*CKING YEAR IN A ROW!!!!! WTF*&CK!!111

Another year w/o Da Yoopers in my life...

 

Ok, how about this:

Make it bigger and longer (hey-o) Like Oktoberfest in Munich. Larger space, longer time to drink. Hell, make it 2 weeks...breweries can come and go, share tents, whatever.
AND change the ticket system. Instead of a general admission, sell tickets per beer like at Strong Ale, or a flat general admission of $10, plus $1 per 4oz pour...or something. This could keep down on the servers crashing, and the frat boys drinking as much as they can for $80 in 4 hours, dude!

 

Welcome to the interwebs!` Tech is supposed to make things better, this is an example of what happens when hundreds if not thousands hit it at the same time.

 

yeah I think people getting shut out were sitting at their desks hitting "refresh"as quick as they could for as long as they could, before giving up and mashing in a batch or getting a bottling line set up for the day, or managing any of a million other brewery problems, whatever. At least that's the impression I got from a thread on probrewer where as you might imagine this is a hot topic. I don't think anybody "waited too long" this year, as last year was a warning as to how quick the thing was gonna fill up.

 

I suggest apportioning states based on craft brewery saturation.

Or maybe extend the GA Bender Fest to one week. Everybody wins.

 

Nah, this an example of what happens when people don't want to pay for tech and figure they can hire their nephew who's "good with computers" to set things up for them. 1000 sales in 2 hours? That's amateur shit. My company routinely handles 10,000 orders in 2 minutes and there's plenty of sites who are way bigger than us.

 

THIS.

Increases the number of spots available for breweries, the number of tickets available to attendees, and makes it more confusing for the drunks... everybody wins.

 

Sounds exactly like what happened to folks trying to get tix last year, I don't remember any of these breweries offering up their sympathies last year to those of us that got the shaft. I feel real real bad for em.



Unless one of the shut out breweries is Brooklyn, that cat deserves a lifetime pass. He gets "it".

 

Can't believe this thread went 1.5 pages before this.

Just make it bigger. 'MERICA

 

I hear this complaint all the time, I know there will be plenty more to come once GABF tickets go on sale soon. You see the same posts around Avery Sourfest regarding getting shut out and jacked up ticket prices. If you really want a ticket and are shut out due to tickets selling out in two minutes, buy a ticket or two at face value the week of the event. There are always, always tickets available on Craigslist and this forum at face value the week of, day of, etc of all these sold out/hard to find festivals. Yes, people will jack up the price to double face value months and weeks out but if you want to get in at face value it really is not that hard. IMO this is overblown.

 

Actually that one room is 3 halls. They have rollaway walls that split them up.

 

http://blogs.denverpost.com/beer/2013/07/10/gabf-breweries-wait-list/10807/

Good news overall I suppose.

 

I think that the BA and GABF has done what they can to accomodate the growing number of breweries in the US. The number one thing to take away with this is the fact that THERE ARE TOO MANY BREWERIES IN THE US FOR US TO ACCOMODATE IN A FRIKEN HUDGE CONVENTION HALL!!!! Seriously, ok, some breweries didn't get in, but 600 breweries did. Just a few years ago, there were only 300 breweries who showed up, they didn't even use all three convention halls. Last year, they had to move the awards ceremony to another hall to accomodate more breweries in the convention hall. This is a growing event, which is representative of the overall explosion of American Craft Beer.

Just because we can highlight a few great breweries that didn't get in, there are a ton of great breweries that did. The BA sent out a warning to members notifying them that it was going to fill up quickly. Any brewery who didn't have a guy sitting at the computer hitting refresh, cannot complain. Sorry, that's just how it goes these days.

I think that the best/fairest way to settle this in the future would be to have a lottery, where breweries who won medals got an extra entry for medals won in the previous year, 3 extra for gold, 2 for silver, 1 for bronze. Breweries who did not get in the previous year would also get an extra entry. Best small, medium, and large breweries would get a free pass.

Secondly, the organizers need to reexamine how they organize breweries and sponsors/retailers on the floor. These companies pay good money to be there too, but does AB really need to take up a whole endcap? Do we really need a "Silent Disco"?

Fact of the matter is, here in the US, there are a lot of breweries, new and old. We are blessed with this and to act as if it is a curse just because they can't all attend the same fest anymore is ignorant and small minded. Just because your favorite didn't get in doesn't mean you won't have an incredible selection of brews from accross the country to select from. In fact, you might find a new favorite.

 

Completely disagree.

If it's an official co-festival that happens to be during the prime GABF, I doubt breweries from the east would stop going to Denver (due to the prestigiousness of the event). However, if the festival runners decided, rationally and fairly, what breweries will operate at which festival, it could work. Or even if they have just the run offs, that didn't make it into Denver go to the satellite East Coast conference, it could work. Bigger breweries could have booths at both. Simulcast the awards. There's a lot that can be done so everyone can participate and make more money.

 

True, but there are plenty of other rooms too. The Comic Con takes place all over the convention center, including the large hall, some rooms downstairs, etc.

 

Huge fan of this. Also allow One full day for industry only.

 

Revolution Brewing and Piece from Chicago got wait-listed, too. All these killer breweries that crushed it last year (and many years prior in the case of Piece) won't be represented. This is a total bummer, but hopefully there will be an answer to all the registration issues next year. I definitely agree that medal winners should have the opportunity to defend their wins from the previous year and, if they don't, they go back into the gen, pop. pool. Or something like that. Oof, I need coffee.

 

The best part of this whole thing is that 30% of breweries that will be attending GABF will be out of beer by Friday around 7:00 p.m. leaving plenty of open booths empty.

 

The thread at probrewer included a suggestion I thought had merit. Why not do regional competitions and let the finalists advance to GABF? (This was for judging-only beers but why not indeed make this work for pouring beers also?) I for one have drank oceans of shitty beer at GABF (two ounces at a time, but still) and wouldn't mind one bit if GABF were the "finals" of a national competition, with much of the crapola weeded out regionally. After all, that's basically what the NHC does every year.

But that will cost too much!!

Don't kid yourself, the GABF turns a HUGE profit. This could be an opportunity for more. Those fucks in the league office (to quote Walter Sobchak) can run 4- 5 more smaller regional tourneys without even putting down the bong, and if they can't, they can sub some of it out and still make $$$..