The Austin Beer Fest

What a great day!
While my wife’s personal yoga instructor, Larry, came over to help her through her weekly «de-​stressing» I decided to take my 8 year old son to the beer fest.
Parking was only 10 dollars! what a deal! My wife charges me twice that to park in our driveway. So i walked inside the gates feeling flush as a Rockafeller.
Once inside… my word. Cold beer as far as the eye could see. And in so many varieties! Bud AND Bud Light, Miller Light, Pabst… I could go on and on.
One minor setback: My son appears to still be missing. I was certain he would call me from a payphone as soon as the fairgrounds emptied out, but no luck. Anyone spot a small red-​haired boy with a prominantely cleft palate, wearing a Kenney Chesney T-​shirt?

I have nothing new to add, except a thank you for those who posted that you can get a refund from Groupon for this ‘failstival’ — and thank goodness I bought tix on Groupon and not from the festival itself, because given the level of organization exhibited at the event itself, refunds seem unlikely.
In general, I wonder why beer festivals in Texas must be outside. Is it inconceivable that connoisseurs of fine beers would also be connoisseurs of air conditioning? Is it asking too much to have had this event INSIDE a rodeo arena, rather than in the parking lot NEXT TO the rodeo arena, where there is no shade? Just a question to organizers of all beer festivals, not just this one.
I was immediately wary of this event on first entering the area — noticing all the cars parked in the surrounding neighborhood and the OBSCENE backup of traffic around the entry gates, then the 2(!!!) people taking cash for parking when there was literally a ½ mile or more of cars backed up to get in; the angry man storming out of the festival as we were entering, and telling the ticketing staff what a ripoff it was, to which they literally replied «Not our problem» — all signs point to bad things. I think the thing that was REALLY upsetting was that this event was so far away from central Austin, and on top of that, so disappointing. We drove all that way, and as soon as we got there we were basically ready to leave.
I read the ‘apology’ the event organizers posted on facebook. It seemed like a bunch of whining and blaming others, which is no surprise, but really it just highlighted the ineptitude of the organizers. Not to say I could take over the organization of the whole thing myself, but there are basic aspects of event management that were overlooked… like, for example, ANY signage. For parking, for the different beer tents, for directions as to which stage is which (not that I would have gone near any of the 3 separate stages each playing their own brand of shitty music). And they noted that they needed more equipment… well, that should be ordered probably more than 3 days before the festival. I don’t know what kind of equipment they’d need other than keg taps, but again, whatever.
This is the kind of event that just makes you not want to go to events, and I’m bummed, because it really could have been a good time!

This was a carnival, not a festival:
—-
55 $ tix
10 $ parking
28 $ beer/​food tix
(93 $ for you mathematicians)
=12 one ounce tastes + 4 ten ounce beers + plus one giant cluster-​F
—-

Since any bar will give you a small taste of beer for free I shouldn’t add these to the calculation, but if you want to compare apples to apples.
Typical pint costs:
$ 6/​pint
The Austin Beer Festival average price:
4 ten ounce beers + 12 one ounce tastes = 52 ounces of beer or 3.25 pints.
The average cost per pint at the beer fest was $ 28.62! SCAM!
If you take away the samples the cost goes to (hold your panties) $ 37.20 per pint!
How about that to put it into perspective? The moral of the story is next time just go to the pub or local brewery. Most good Austin pubs, like the Whip in, have a better selection on tap than the entire ‘festival’. I think the comments by others pretty much capture the rest of the story. Did anyone find irony in seeing Corona and Miller tents at a craft beer event or the fact that the beers were poured in ‘Bud Light’ cups? If the other comments don’t show the complete lack of connection from the sponsors/​organizers to the demographic of the target audience, I hope that does.
Good riddance Austin Beer Carnival.

Terrible.
Total slap in the face to not only the people who attended but the handful of craft breweries that actually showed up.
Only positive part was me parking across the street and not wasting another $ 10 on parking.

UPDATE (⁴⁄₂ @ 2PM) — I contacted GroupOn just now by phone — they will refund the tickets if you call them on 1 (888) 375‑5777. Just explain the basic fact that the event didn’t provide what was promised in the ticket and they will issue GroupOn credit or refund. GroupOn is getting DELUGED with phone call and email so persevere.
UPDATE (⁴⁄₂ @ 1PM) — Long winded excuse on the Facebook page and no mention of refunds:
Just to add, I saw this posted on one comment on Facebook:
«Please send all complaints against „Austin Beer Fest“ to
A possible class action suit is in the works»

Wow, absolutely terrible.
First of all, we had to wait 30 min to get to park, and they wanted to charge us $ 10 to park, although they did not tell us about this prior to the event.
It then took about 30 min to get into the venue.
The venue itself was lousy, the Travis County Expo Center. It is basically where rodeos are held, and it certainly had that feel to it.
With better preparation, this could have been better.
They had us all on asphalt out in the hot sun all day.
OK, now to the beer. I could have gotten any of this beer at the local grocery store.
It would be better if customers could try things they might want to buy here in Austin, and companies could see what they might want to sell here. But no, it was all stuff we could just buy anyway.
Some tents ran out of beer about 2 hours into it. Not good.
Not all companies actually had representatives and it showed. I could not get good answers to some of my questions when I asked about a particular beer. It would have been nice if each company could have sent an actual representative.
The food was kinda OK, but it could have been a bit better and more of it.
The organization was awful, it was easy to tell that no thought had gone into the way the vendor and food locations were laid out.
They wanted $ 35 for shirt … what?
When I talked to one of the workers there, they said it was not going over well and they wanted to plan it better. Apparently, they wanted to hold it at the Travis County Expo center so they could make money off parking. What? They could make plenty of money if they had planned it properly.
It looks like to me all they wanted to do was make some easy cash and leave.
I wish somebody would sue them, seriously. This was a brain dead, careless attempt at a beer festival, which could have been really awesome with the right planning.

Worst beer event ever, RIPOFF. Contact
and let him know, he owns the company that put this on.
1. Ticket prices were high, and you only got 6 2oz tasters with a ticket
2. Parking was $ 10, which combined with the ticket prices felt like gouging
3. The line to actually park a car was about 30 minutes
4. The line to enter the Fest once we parked was about 20 minutes
5. The event was listed as an «International» Beer Fest, but I did not see many of the beers actually out. The few ones from other countries were a couple of bottles sitting out in the sun.
6. Once the event got crowded, lines to get a 2oz taster were over 20min
7. During the event, trucks were unloading beer bottles/​cans in the middle of the lines of people. I was honked at several times to move out of the way for a truck that was clearly in the middle of where people were supposed to line up for the beer tents
8. Tickets for more tasters/​one full beer were $ 7, which once again felt like gouging
Besides this, the event was nearly outside of Austin, the music was loud and grating, and everyone I met and talked to at the event had similar complaints. In the end, I paid $ 60 for two tickets and parking for a total of 12oz of beer. If this event is put on again, my girlfriend and I will most certainly not be attending.

UPDATE (4÷2÷2012) — I submitted a refund request to Google Offers at approximately 2:30 pm through their website. After getting an initial acknowledgment minutes later, they responded again within 2 hours to let me know that my refund would be processed. A huge thanks to Google Offers for doing the exact opposite of the event organizers and making things right for their customers.
(4÷1÷2012) This was the e-​mail I sent through their website…
I was very excited to hear about this event, and even more when I was able to get two tickets through Google Offers. However, that excitement turned into utter disgust on my journey there.
The traffic was horrendous, which was only slightly explained by the surprise of the $ 10 parking fee, which was NOT publicized in any promotional material. I was led to believe that we would get a special glass for the tastings, but I was promptly told at the check-​in that you had to buy your tickets through something else to get the glass. Then, there was the layout of the event, which was nothing short of random. The map we printed from your site was useless. The brewer line-​up ended up being no better than what I could find in any decent beer pub in Austin. The lines to get a sample or a beer were exceedingly long, and the prices for full beers were borderline criminal.
Overall, this was easily the worst experience I could have imagined for an event like this. It’s a shame to have the name of the great city of Austin attached to such a sham of a festival, which was obviously a thinly-​veiled attempt at a money grab.

We left after 2 hours and I felt like an asshole complaining how fucking weak this shit really was… that was until I logged onto Unilocal and was reassured it was indeed weak as shit by my fellow Unilocalers. I even made the comment «Maybe we were just spoiled by all the cool parties that went down during SXSW»…wrong! How dare you embarrass Austin with this abortion of an event. I hope you never return because this event is not what Austin is about.
After being scammed out of $ 50 and paying the $ 10 to park, we arrived 15 minutes early to encounter a line that was reminiscent of Disneyland’s Splash Mountain. With no clear signage or staff member with a bull horn or a brain it was an all out cluster fuck! Groupon line on one side, on line buyers in another and VIP (which had to be the biggest sickest joke in the world). There was no sense of urgency with any staff member and whomever organized this event must have let their fourth grade child help out. After the clock hit 2:15pm they finally started scanning everyones tickets INDIVIDUALLY… my dear Lord seriously people it’s 2012 we can grow a genetically modified ear on a rats back yet we can’t figure out a way to get people through the freaking gate at a faster pace. I swear there were more people waiting in the parking lot at any given time then were actually in the gates!
Once through we found out we had to buy drink tickets so we dropped another $ 35 dollars, armed with our tickets we made our way to the tents to get crunk. The advertisers had stated that 500 beers from all over the world will be in attendance… yes world wide beers such as Kirin, Corona and Lone Star! There were very few beers that I saw that are not available at Whole Foods, HEB and Central Market… RIP OFF!!! The thimble sized «sample» cups were very generous, I truly enjoyed shaking beer soaked fingers of the vendors all over the rims of the 2oz cup I was about to put my lips on (half foam by the way). $ 5-​$ 7 beers that were flat and foamy or poured from a lukewarm bottle, sub par school cafeteria food and $ 20 ugly as fuck t-shirts…I’d had enough thank you… I had to leave.
the Pro’s: Free Bottle openers… the Samuel Adams one was especially quality. and
Some annoying beer vendor skank trying to act like she knew what she was doing in front of a bunch of guys by taping a keg resulting in dark poo poo colored beer spraying all over her and her white shorts proving there is a God
I feel bad for the people who came from out of town for this event… it blew soooo much

Dear fellow beer lovers,
Help me find or tell me who hosted this event? I will never attend anything hosted by them. In fact I can’t wait to bad mouth these idiots for disrespecting you, my friends, and myself!
I absolutely love my beer events! And attend almoat every event during Austin beer week! This was the worse event I have ever been to. I’m ashamed and embarrassed I attended. I feel stupid and ripped off.
How dare you charge for parking at an event with only one place to park! Your an ASSHOLE!
Then we weren’t allowed to use our souvenir mugs. F you!
Never again will you host an event in Austin! I wish evil upon you!
My friends paid $ 50 for tickets and $ 10 for parking and NEVER EVEN WENT IN.
They contemplated the hour+ long line, then I texted them about how sucky it was inside, so they went to Flying Saucer instead.
After joining them at Flying Saucer. I knew they made the right decision.

*** UPDATE: Austin Beer Festival provides an «explanation» on their facebook page
…doesn’t sound like a heartfelt apology to me and is placing blame on others…
Hey fellow Unilocalers!
Check out MORE 1 star reviews of this and search for «Austin Beer Fest»
Here’s a facebook link to the CEO/​OWNER of yesterday’s notoriously awful event… looks like also there’s some denial in association with the debacle that was the Houston Beer Fest last year that also got backlash criticisms, as well as a recently cancelled L.A. event organized by the same folks who brought us Austin Beer Fest!
The Unilocal!,twitter, facebook frenzy is HIGH-​larious and future event planners better be warned… don’t EVER EVER PISS OFF and SCAM Austinites… you’re dealing with smart, intelligent and savvy folks that experience events like SXSW and alot of other professionally run events… and you screw them, they can DEFINITELY screw you in social media! lol

What a RIP OFF. I expect long lines at beer festivals, I get it. But, $ 37.50 for 1 beer chopped up into 6 tiny pill dispensing cups? Seriously!?! $ 7.00 for a beer that did not even hold an entire bottle. You had to pay for water. There food looked so disgusting I did not even want to consider eating anything there. And this is coming from a girl who’s guilty pleasure is gas station nachos!
I was in good company so made the best of it but seriously…
Two people SIX BEERS = $ 80.
Shame on you.

This is by far the worst $ 35 I have spent in my life. I bought the deal through Google Offers and got 2 tickets, only to bring a friend along to suffer through this horrendous event.
First off, the parking situation like everyone said was a disaster. After waiting 45 minutes waiting to drive into the parking area, we ended up parking in a really shady neighborhood and walked a little over a mile to get to the event area.
Ok great, the wait was over after finding parking, right? Hell no, there were 3 tents trying to register the hundreds of people trying to get in. Another 45 minutes of wait on a hot sticky day.
1 ½ hours in, we finally get our 6 drink tickets. From past beer fests, they would give you a healthy 4 – 6 oz of beer. Nope, not this place, the tasting jello shot cups were a joke. Half the cup was foam so you got maybe 3 sips out of a sample.
The description mentioned «import & craft brews» which was a deception. Many of them were beers you can buy at the local supermarket (e.g. Lone Star). And like the other Unilocalers posted, they were pouring out of bottles, c’mon! I could’ve just went to the Flying Saucer and got a bucket of mystery beers and paid much less than the event cost.
I wasted 3 hours of my life I will never get back. I don’t know who organized this event but I hope these scammers lose a lot of money from people demanding refunds and charging back on their credit cards.

I felt —scammed! The previous reviewers have pretty much described the experience. The event was extremely poorly planned and understaffed and a big ripoff. It took 1.5hrs to park and get into the event.
You get absolutely nothing for your $ 35 entrance fee — -i saw a stage, but didnt hear any live music during the time we were there. The only music was some sort of techno on a continuous loop. You get six samples that are shot glass sizes. Definitely not worth the 30 minutes or more wait at each beer tent. You have to wait in line, again, to buy tickets to buy beer. The majority of the beers can be found at your local grocery store. Many didn’t even have kegs; they just poured your beers straight from cans or bottles. And yes, they charge $ 5 for a can of bud light!
We came at 3:15PM, stayed for 3 hours just to drink 2 beers at ridiculously high prices in the Austin heat.
Only if I can turn back time…

Don’t ever go to this poorly organized bullshit event. This is not what Austin is about.
I want some sort of compensation for my overpriced ticket. why not open a few more gates for parking? why not have this event in Austin instead of the Rodeo Grounds?

This event was a farce. Not only was the event falsely advertised on their website (tickets were not sold or redeemed as quoted), but the entire event was clearly a money venture with no attempt at customer satisfaction. Seldom did I find a friendly vendor (Santa Fe brewery was awesome and super knowledgeable and friendly), and I never encounter a friendly staff member. The only redeemable quality was the beer, but as the first reviewer mentioned, these are obtainable at a local supermarket for a fraction of the price.
I have attended numerous Austin events (especially beer events for the purpose of this review), and this is the first time I have left entirely jaded. If this group has the audacity to try and bleed more money out of Austinites next year, I can only hope against all hope that they remedy these issues, but I would not hold out hope.
Some twitter users speculated that this may be the same group that left a wake of dissatisfied attendants in Houston last year. If this is the case, we must be vigilant for they may attempt to scam a new city soon.
In summation, this is absolutely the WORST experience I have had at an Austin event. Hopefully this will be the last too.

There were no directions about where to park, so it took us 45 minutes of driving one way and then turning around. We just followed the painfully slow line of cars.
After paying ten dollars to park on grass, we saw the line to enter. It seemed to continue to grow as we chased the end. Once there, I begged my husband to allow me to take him to the Flying Saucer, as there was no way anything inside the gates would be worth the hell of this line. He was as merciless and determined as a modern-​day Clark Grizzwald.
Once inside, with my six tickets plus the two tickets some truly disappointed patrons tossed to us on their way out, I downed four shots of cider. Living large. Then over to the more «esoteric» beers– nothing beats two ounces of 10% alcohol by volume craft beers, with no water or food without standing in a total of two long lines.
The highlight was the guy walking around with the sandwich board which read «LineFest 2012!»

I feel like this was a huge scam. Expensive parking not included in ticket price, long lines with only 1 ticket scanner at the door, and shot-​sized sample cups with continued long lines while inside. That being said, I feel like 90% of beer selection was nothing you couldn’t find at the grocery store by my house.
I’m sorry I bought the google offer for this event and feel like I was cheated out of my money and time.

Worst event… EVER.
Top 5 things I’d rather do than go to one of this company’s events ever again.
1) Help a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend move across Austin in August.
2) Have dinner at The Oasis once a week for a year.
3) Make out with my Grandmother.
4) A cross country road trip in a minivan with the East El Paso refried bean eating team.
5) Get kicked in the nuts.

If you went to this event through a site like Groupon, I highly encourage you to demand a refund. The advertising was essentially fraud and you can still find statements on their website which are patently false (if you experienced the event). I think someone on Twitter said it best:
#austinbeerfest #ripoff #disgrace
This event was the WORST event I have ever experienced. To start it off, they lied and/​or falsely advertised the event on their website and groupon/​other mass discounters. The first 5000 ticket purchases were supposed to receive glasses except, unstated anywhere, this excluded Groupon/​similar sites. We were belligerently denied glasses by their cheerful site staff.
Second, the ticket system they had for tasting beer was pretty damn close to thievery. For the entrance fee, you received 6 tasting tickets each able to get you 2oz in a taster cup. OR from their website, «full servings [12oz] are three tickets, depending on the brew.» EXCEPT I did not see one beer offered for a full serving at 3 tickets. It is possible they had Bud Light somewhere in the camp grounds being offered at that rate because drinking Bud Light is why people go to beer fests.
To make matters worse, the website also stated «tasting tickets are $ 2 each.» Except they weren’t being sold. They only sold $ 1 coupons that HAD to be redeemed at somewhere between 5 – 7 tickets per 12oz beer. No more tasting after your 6 tasting coupons were gone. 5 tickets being a beer like Lonestar, 7 being just about any other beer. To summarize, after consuming your 12oz of taster coupons (aka 1 beer!), you had the option of buying beer at $ 7 per beer.
On top of all of that, the beers that were featured here were practically all beers I have tried before. Because I try lots of beer? No, because about 96% of the beers featured may be purchased at HEB/​Central Market. I forgot to mention I think every beer besides 512 brewery was out of the bottle.
In conclusion, for the exorbitant price of admission you receive one beer split up between tasting cups. Then you can pay $ 7 per beer after that to buy beers which cost roughly the same price per 6 pack-​all available at a supermarket. While standing in the sun. After waiting 20 – 45 minutes to be able to park, for which they charged $ 10-​not mentioned anywhere.
Cliff Notes: Biggest scam I’ve experienced in a long time. Avoid at all costs. Warn your friends.