Great Taste IP tickets

1: Great Taste Ticket Weekend is, if I recall, generally the "Kickoff" of Madison Beer Week. There may be some events (last year Coopers Tavern did a BCBS thing) but it's not too crazy in my experience. That said, there's good beer to be found all over Madison so you're not going to go thirsty.

2: Last year my group lined up at Vintage Brewing Co... They had a spot in the parking lot roped off for tailgating and bottle sharing. We all ended up crashing out around 1-2AM and woke up the next morning.. No issues. Bring blankets

3: Vintage Brewing Co was super cool and earned a repeat visit from me this year. I'll be there with buddies sharing brews. If you end up there, say hi! 1-2 AM is probably fine for lineup time. Most places you're able to go around 5-6AM and still get a ticket if you want. Again, bring blankets. It gets cold as nuts.

 

Are in person ticket sales cash only?

 

Yes cash only

 

Trying to make plans for Sunday morning, so if I was planning on being at Steve's Junction Road or The Vintage at 3:30-4:00 AM should I be safe for getting tickets?

 

Totally missed that on their FAQ page. Thanks!

 

You would have been in years past. Things haven't escalated for Great Taste tickets yet, but I keep expecting the insanity to explode any year. Happy to keep being wrong!

 

MCBW Saturday Events: http://isthmus.com/search/event/madison-craft-beer-week-2016/#search_date=2016-04-30

I'd recommend the Saturday afternoon Cask Ale Fest, but it looks like it will probably rain at some point. Dexter's, Malt House & Tipsy Cow will probably have the best tap selections on any given day/event. Check their facebook & webpages for additional info. MCBW site & mobile app don't seem to have any specific taps listed.

 

I feel like 330-4 is pretty safe for most locations. I know some people last year that closed down Malthouse and crashed in law chairs. The same group plans to do that same thing this year at BrasserieV for the Wine and Hop Shop.

 

Waste of of trip not arriving earlier than 7?

 

My guess is there might be one or two locations where you could arrive at 7 and get tickets, knowing which locations those are ahead of time is basically impossible. One year a location has a shorter line and people hear about it so the next year more people go there and it's worse than somewhere else. If you're from out of town I just don't think it'd be worth it to take the risk. You likely won't get an official people count for a while, and even if you had one earlier you might get screwed by the massive number of people letting their friends cut in line.

 

Showed up at the Vintage at 1:45 Sunday morning and there were already over 100 people there. Sounds like some people were pitching tents outside starting at 5:30-6 Saturday evening. We ended up being #120 and #123 in line. If we had waited until 4 I think we still would have made the cut, but it would have been close. Long night, still foggy this morning, but I ended up with my 4 tickets so I'm good

 

I did have a general question/though/observation/what have you; instead of handing out wristbands at 9 AM, why can't they just sell the tickets then? Is there a reason why they have to wait until Noon? It just seemed like the wait staff and customers coming into the restaurant were put off by the line that snaked pretty much through the entire place. Just curious.

 

We had exactly the same discussion. Seems inefficient & kind of silly. But the festival is so amazingly well run I'm not going to sweat this one quirk.

Vintage was one of those places that had a "short" line in 2015. People were showing up around 7:00 AM saying "We were going to be shut out at X so we decided to drive over here" & they still got tickets. I'd be curious to hear what time the cutoff was this year at various places.

We were one of the 5:30 PM tent pitchers. This is going to be our ninth Great Taste, & driving from Minnesota, we're going to get their early enough to make 100% sure we aren't going to get shut out!

 

They would have to get all locations on board with selling tickets at 9am in order to prevent people from going from one place that sells them at 9am to a place that sells them at noon. That being said I wouldn't mind 9am ticket sales either.

Only three and a half more months to go!

 

Right - I meant all locations sell at 9 instead of handing out wristbands. I'm not complaining, and would've waited until 3 if they made us.

 

My thought is that they do it to try and keep people from lining up even earlier than they already do. Businesses probably don't like people setting up tents outside Saturday night before they are even closed for the night. Also, kind of the same point but I'm sure they hand the wristbands out at 9 to clear out sidewalks and what not for businesses that open around that time.

 

I arrived at Steve's University at 4am and was #104. Last year I got there at 4:30am and was #34. My guess is that whoever was #200 probably got there around 5am.

With people lining up earlier and earlier every year, they could go all mail order (which I doubt they want to do because of the work involved) or eliminating mail order and selling all the tickets IP to prevent people from showing up the night before while businesses are still open.

 

Exactly this. I had a rough idea that we were good when we showed up at about 3, and spent the next 5 hours keeping the line jumpers in check. I thought it was BS that I had to call people out on their D-bagery, but found out I wasn't the only one, so suffice to say I may not have gotten tickets if I and others looked the other way and let it happen.

One other thing that worries me is the amount of people that show up early and get blackout, throwing up, belligerent drunk. Several people that got wristbands were no where to be found once they started selling tickets and missed their spot in line. I am in no means a saint, but it seem idiotic to get so blotto you miss your opportunity for tickets. Plus, if the drinking gets too out of hand, they could eliminate the bottle share mentality of the lines all together.

FWIW, every year I up the time I get in line, and it seems every other year or so I drop farther back in the line. I assumed with the cold and wet weather most would wait longer to lin up this year, but the bulk that got tickets got wet for several hours.

 

It's been several years, but at one time I was told the reason they wait till noon to sell the tickets is based on liquor laws. Not sure the laws are the same now, but I'm guessing they haven't moved the time for tradition reasons. Not sure what the exact reason is now, but that is how I remember it being explained to me years ago.