City Pages’ Beer fest is celebrating their 18th year! The event takes place near 10th & Hennepin in the Theater District on Saturday, June 5, 2010 from 5:00-9:00 pm. The event includes variety of domestic and imported beer, live music and of course great people watching! Advance tickets are $26 and available at select MGM locations and online at 2010citypagesbeerfest.eventbrite.com.
Tickets will be available at the door the night of the event for $30. An $8 designated driver ticket is also available. Regular admission includes all beer samples and live musical entertainment, including SellOut Stereo, accordionist Bill Koncar and the Brian Boru Irish Pipe Band. A portion of proceeds from the tasting will benefit the St. Paul Jaycees.
Woooooo! Drunk fest!
And which beer fest isnt?
City Pages is a step above (even the Gitchee Gumee with people pounding Bud Light in line before the fest and throwing up less then 15 minutes in may be beaten here). Majority of the fest goers are there to drink the Bud Light and Miller Chill. Upside is that it leaves the few craft lines a bit less crowded but it’s still filled with lots of “Give me your highest alcohol and lightest colored beer.”
I haven’t been to Drunk Fest in years, but with all the great beer in town (and so many better fests coming along) I can’t see it as being the draw that it once was, especially for anyone who either Respects Beer(TM) or enjoys having an opportunity to get to know more about the beer from the brewers and brewery reps themselves.
Sure, there are exceptions to this at the CP Fest, but a person will really have to put up with some obnoxiousness and bustle in order to do so, and I can see that as being off-putting to many.
@ Ben
Is Miller Chill still on the market? I don’t miss it, but Bud Light Lime seems to have kicked it squarely into the remainder bin ; )
I’ll admit that I went to this last year, and I didn’t have a terrible time and there weren’t THAT many trashed people. Three problems, though:
1) The 3 beer tents were set up in a condensed “U” shape near the west side of the lot, which meant if you wanted anything in the middle of the “U”, it was a huge clusterfuck of a pinch-point. Luckily Rock Bottom and Lagunitas were on the outside and the lines were short for those. Little victories.
2) Not enough toilets. Not even close. People were waiting in line for an hour to get in a biff.
3)The stage was on the far NE corner of the lot, with almost nothing else around it. There was probably at least 50 yards of empty lot between the stage and the nearest…anything. They must have figured that a large crowd of people would actually watch the bands or something.
I have thought about going to this again, mainly because it’s nice to be outside and drinking at a fest downtown, and planned on buying a VIP ticket(private biffs!). That’s until I realized the VIP tickets are $20 more than the regular ticket. I guess I’d go again if they mentioned MORE TOILETS in the new ad.
“More space, more flavor and more restrooms!”
That’s listed on the event page. Hmmm, gotta wonder if that’s a truthful statement.
More flavor eh? Also seems on their event page they call it the 18th annual in the headline and the 17th annual in the first paragraph.
Couple years back some drunk took a piss on the generator powering the whole event. Toilets have always been a problem at this fest.
I’ve seen the planned layout and it’s different than last year. More open and the “U” shape is opened up with only one big tent in the middle. They plan to have more Biff’s this year too. Last year they had about 30 and the plan is for 40 this year so that will help. The band is SellOut Stereo and they are a really fun cover band – I’ve seen them a couple times. Always a great event and awesome when the weather is like last year!
@Steve
You are the promoter. Don’t you me “I” instead of “they?” No problem with promoting your event here(AFAIK)…just be up front about it.
me=mean, BTW
Do they still pour beer from bottles, no tap/kegged beers?
I agree that this is a poorly run/set-up event. It starts w/the lines for getting in (due to limited entry points/too few people checking IDs/etc) and continues w/the tent set-up, etc. Definitely a B-list event.
Do they EVER list the breweries they’ll have there? I know I’m assuming alot, but really, with quality events like the St. Paul Summer Beerfest, Autumn Brew Review and Winterfest around… the bar is just higher for CityPages to be asking this much for tickets.
Are you serious about the ticket price? Its less than the St. Paul one which is on a Sunday. The breweries are on the ticket website page.
I purchased the VIP tickets they were a bit pricey , but they were worth every penny. The food was most excellent, the beer vendors were plentiful and my group had a great time and plan on attending next year.