Kate trading

I see. There was also mention of eBay/resellers; it wouldn't be terribly surprising if those sources prescratched the tickets.

Then again, I don't understand why employees would give out bundles of winners to people they didn't know (I've seen several mentions of this on various beer sites).

 

I don't seriously believe the employees were malicious. It sounds like the tickets came in later than expected, which is why they went on sale only two weeks before Kate day. I swear I saw they came in at like 3 in the afternoon, and then went on sale at 5. Which means in those two hours they needed to shuffle them up, sort them into packs of 15, and get them ready for sale. Not much time for some kind of elaborate backroom heist. The places where Portsmouth screwed up was in the ticket design (being able to see winners before scratching) and then by not shuffling.

 

Anyone else think Portsmouth would be insane to continue using scratch tickets after this? And I'm not even trying to get a Kate! (Although I probably will eventually.)

 

Agree. Why don't they just follow Bruery PiaPt lottery model? Everybody needs to put their name in a list and they pick randomly. That's will remove a lot of drama. I mean $2 donated to charity is not a big deal, but if you aren't lucky, these cost will add up as the same time drive up the cost of bottle. In addition, I prefer to have a choice in the non profit org that I donate money to. My agenda may be totally different than a brewery.

 

I think the bruery is way more beer-geek-centric than Portsmouth is. I think the tickets work well enough for 'em as it is. Changing all the rules *again* would just be more confusing.

And it's not like they pick controversial charities. It's all local to Portsmouth.

 

Alternatively just not use randomness. Why don't they just issue 7.5x fewer tickets for 7.5x the cost, one per person per day, and have them each get a Kate? I don't understand how that would cause any more frenzy, and it would be significantly more fair and leave a lot less room for shenanigans/poor design.

 

EDIT I misread your post.

I think the tickets bring a bit of fun to it. I think there's an element of anticipation, fun, and chance that they (portsmouth) enjoy.

 

Is it worth it, though? It sounds like this is harder to administer and almost certainly more expensive. Plus it leaves a lot of room for alienating fans (if I went 0-45 I'd never buy another Portsmouth product again, since the system is just so unnecessary it almost seems mean-spirited). I just can't see the upside here.

 

Because then you'd be back to Kate day. The whole point of the tickets was to try to alleviate a bit of the madness. For every person that runs to Portsmouth Brewery for the lottery tickets, there are probably 5 more that would run to Portsmouth Brewery if they were guaranteed a bottle.

Here are the two ways they should do Kate bottles:

1 - Tie them to purchases somehow. All year long you get to drop your name into a raffle every time you eat there. Or do the scratch tickets starting a few months before Kate day, but you can only buy one ticket with every $25 spent or something like that. There are a lot of ways to make this happen, but it will completely eliminate the craziness, and more importantly, reward their real customers.

2 - Just quietly slip them into the cooler throughout the year like any other beer.

Or they could just stop bottling it altogether. In a way Portsmouth has created its own monster here. If they stop bottling, they could probably have enough Kate to last an entire day on tap with little problem, and that would also have the benefit of killing off the ridiculously long 8am lines for Kate day.

 

You might never buy more, but most everyone who bought the tickets is there for dinner/beers regularly anyways. The kate tickets are a bonus, not the reason people go to the brewpub.

 

I don't agree with this. I bet the randomness deters few enough people to not matter. The scratch tickets didn't even last 24 hours. Do you really think that a ticket for the beer would last for less time? That doesn't even seem possible.

And if that's the issue then offload the tickets to some ticket service like Stone did. Then that service takes all the hassle.

And you're definitely right that they created this monster themselves, I just think they're doing a remarkably bad job of taming it. Which is fine, if this is how they want it to be. But that's just sort of unfathomable to me.

 

I think guaranteed bottles would definitely go much quicker, as people would be more apt to bring mules and care less about eating there to help justify the trip. Regardless, you're right in that the tix sold out much faster than expected. Last year they lasted all day Saturday and half of a Sunday with less tickets. This year they didn't even last 10 hours despite more tickets.

 

Why do you think that? Bringing mules gets you more bottles either way, it's just a matter of getting you more on average or guaranteed. I'm well aware that I understand probability better than most people, but I don't think anyone is bad enough at it to not realize that "more tickets = better". So why would this deter mules? Why would this encourage people to eat? I really cannot understand those connections.

Also, I really doubt that many, if any, people are scared off by this randomness. After all, isn't your expectation TWO bottles? Plus people only think about the good returns, not the bad (otherwise no one would play the lottery).

 

Let's say you bring 4 mules - a lot of people have problems fronting $150 in cash on complete randomness. But $50 or whatever on a sure thing? Plus it's a lot easier to convince 3-4 others to drive up with you for a guaranteed bottle vs the scratch ticket deal.

 

Maybe, but I just really doubt that you'd get that many more. Plus there would be twice as many tickets (provided the odds really were 2/15), and I very, very much doubt you'd get twice as many people showing up.