Straight Dope on the SAVOR Sell-Out Part 1
It was a given that SAVOR tickets would go fast, but who would have predicted they'd sell out in just 10 minutes?! Does U2 sell out that fast? (Well, actually, it took them about 20 years, but we digress.) We heard from several beer-geek friends who failed to get tickets to this year's craft beer and food pairing event planned for June 5 at the National Building Museum and didn't know what to say. We're as astonished as everyone else–so Tammy reached out to Julia Herz, Craft Beer Program Director at the Brewers Association to get some answers.
Herz, who lives in Boulder, Colorado, but grew up in Bethesda and fondly remembers family trips to The Brickskeller and other regional beer destinations in support of her brother's beer can collection, thinks SAVOR's popularity is a testament to the growing interest in how well beer can pair with food and the advanced beer culture that thrives in DC.
Despite unprecedented demand for this year's event, according to Herz the Brewers Association has no plan to add sessions or salons to accommodate more people. Instead, she says the Brewers Association is focusing all its efforts on making the single three-and-a-half-hour session the best it can be for the finite group of people (we few, we happy few...) who attend. For example, this year they are partnering with "Beer Chef" Bruce Paton to consult with caterers and breweries to help ensure that each food and beer pairing is exceptional, and they have added private tastings of less than 30 people who will be able to informally chat with the brewers while tasting their rare beers.
"It's not a festival," Herz explained. Unlike the Great American Beer Festival, the annual three-day, four-session Brewers Association event in Denver that gives 49,000 attendees access to over 2,000 beers from nearly 500 American breweries (Curious? Check out our 2009 GABF pics on FB), SAVOR is meant to be an intimate, world-class experience where a comparably small number of participants can "mix and mingle with each other while being personally served by some of the best craft brewers in the U.S."
It's disappointing that SAVOR organizers don't take a tip from U2 and add dates to satisfy the beer-loving throng, but Herz believes (and we agree) that the unofficial DC beer week that grows around SAVOR each year can help satiate many of the local beer fans who were not able to get tickets. We hope that DC beer bars will step up to plan a wealth of events over the course of the week that take advantage of having so many of the country's most talented brewers and their beers in DC at the same time.
Stay tuned for SAVOR Mania Part 2, in which we discuss the SAVOR pre-sale, who got tickets, and how breweries were chosen for the event with Brewers Association Event Director Nancy Johnson.
10:33 am
If you wanna call me a SAVOR apologist, feel free. Don't work for them; I HAVE attended both prior SAVORs, and, yes, I have my tickets for this year.
What's WRONG with the BA having this event, and handling it their way, and selling as many tickets as they feel comfortable with? Yes, the demand obviously exceeds the supply; maybe that's a tribute to how good last year was. Would some of the on-line critics be happier if the tickets were even MORE expensive?
Yes, they gave the edge to last year's purchasers. I don't know how many tickets were sold that way, but if you make this event LARGER, and you put it in an even larger venue, it's not going to be as pleasant to attend.
There are plenty of beer festivals that are basically open to as many folks as want to attend, and you can share your beer enjoyment with a bunch of 20-somethings puking on their shoes. What's wrong with having THIS event be a little more controlled?
4:08 pm
Frankly, the demand for SAVOR tickets shows how starved the DC beer community is for quality events. Every month I read in Ale Street News or Mid-Atlantic Brewing News or any number of publications about all of the great beer events in Pennsylvania, New York, etc..., and there is almost nothing going on in Northern Virginia or DC. Sounds like a market opportunity to me....