UPDATE: Seasonal Six Pack tickets are SOLD OUT for the year.
We talked about this change-up a bit earlier this season, but things are now finalized. Your very first opportunity to buy Winterfest tickets will be on December 1st at noon as part of the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild’s “Seasonal Six Pack Holder,” which will include a pair of tickets to All Pints North, Autumn Brew Review and Winterfest. This ticket pack runs $290. If you’ve ever sat in front of a keyboard waiting to order Winterfest or ABR tickets, you’ll likely find this a relief… and you’ll have an excuse to visit Duluth for All Pints North, which was a really great event this summer.
This year’s Winterfest takes place on Friday, February 1st from 7-10pm at the Minnesota History Center. Tickets for this event will be $75 and will go on sale on Monday, December 10th at noon. Mark your calendars!
For those unfamiliar with the event, Winterfest is the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild’s premiere event, highlighting Minnesota breweries and brewpubs. Breweries and brewpubs all put their best foot forward and bring some of their rarest, most-interesting, and just plain weird beers to this event. There’s really nothing like it. No bones about it, this event isn’t cheap, but I try to remember that the Guild is a non-profit and this is a special event. It’s not for everyone, and that’s okay.
Maybe with them raising the price to $75, the tickets will last 15 seconds, instead of 10!
They were $60 last year, werent they?
Cue the complainers about the ticket price. If you don’t want to pay, don’t go but there are still more that are more than willing to pay than there are tickets.
Should be awesome as always.
It’s a shame the Guild decided to make this Fest something only a few can financially consider.
How much is a 6 Pack of tickets?
Call me a complainer, but $75 is getting to be over the top for pricing. I understand big beer, exclusive, etc but there has to be a happy medium here.
I see no problem with the higher price. Keep in mind where this money goes. Not only does it pay for the sweet location, great food, and help compensate the brewers for the beer, this money also goes to the MN Craft Brewer’s Guild. It helps them do things like get laws passed to allow growler sales in the state and allow breweries to have taprooms. This is money well spent that benefits all beer drinkers in the state.
MN Craft Brewers Guild didn’t do anything as an entity to help pass the taproom bill. Actually, as an entity The Guild had no opinion on the bill. The taproom bill was pushed through from individual breweries like Summit, Schell’s, Surly, Lift Bridge, Fulton and many others. The Guild’s current focus is promotion of Minnesota Craft beer not legislative action. Ticket money goes to pay for the event site, planning & coordination, beer, food and promotion.
I don’t care about the ticket price, so long as the money is going to actual operations and not just fattening the wallet of some paid staffer. Demand obviously outstrips the supply, which the guild isn’t interested in changing.
But if it’s still going to be a matter of winning the lottery by getting the page to refresh at just the right microsecond, nothing has improved.
Here in Portland, multiple organizations throw about half a dozen major festivals: Cheers to Belgian Beers, Organic Beer Festival, PIB, OBF, Fresh Hop Tastival, and the Holiday Ale Fest come to mind immediately–the latter runs for five days. Just maybe that’s the long-term solution.
The complaining about this fest is interesting. People act as if they must attend it and there are no other events all year. If you don’t get into or don’t want to pay the price for Winterfest, theres still ABR, All Pints North, St. Paul Summer Beer Fest, Gitchee Gumee, Rochester Beer Fest, St. Cloud Beer Fest, Beer Dabbler, Arborfest, and others. There is no shortage of beer fests and other beer events throughout the year.
Prices for everything have increased over the years. Some years ago, most beer dinners were $20-30 and now it seems most are closer to $50. We recognize that the prices of many things, from milk to gas, have increased over the years but some things people fail to accept will also increase in price such as beer and beer events even though the cost of producing them has increased too.
Winterfest and ABR now include many more breweries than they did some years ago when they started. More breweries means more that need to be compensated for the beer they bring. Your ticket price is being split amongst more than 2x as many breweries as it once was. Many ingredient costs are up from what they were several years ago. Food costs are up.
On a cost related note-Summit, Schell and Sierra Nevada 12pks are essentially the same price now as they were 8 years ago(as far back as I can recall). When Fury was released in cans for the first time in October of ’06, it was 8.99 at the store i worked at. Its 9.99 now(11% increase). not bad. Point is not all beer has increased in the past years. Winterfest was $45 in 2010, 75 now (66% increase).
Im guessing for the supply to equal demand for this(assuming they cant produce more tickets), the price per ticket should probably be about 200 bucks. Probably should just be thankful they are ONLY $75. To quote some of the dorks on ‘Shark Tank’- I’m out.
Where will the Seasonal Six Packs be available for sale on Saturday? Will there be a link added to the mncraftbrew.org website because currently there is no information there?
Hi Jamie, there should be a link on the Guild’s site for the Seasonal Six Pack tickets closer to Saturday.
There will be two tickets for Winterfest auctioned off Saturday evening during a silent auction at a Movember party thrown by the Foam Combers. Two reasons this is cool, first being it is before the guild is releasing these to the public, and the second reason is that all the proceeds will go to changing the face of men’s health. Also, stick around for a pint or two of craft beer, $15 to participate in Kill the Craft Keg until 9pm. Silent Auction opens at 6pm.
Left off where! Idiot…. Blue Nile