Chilkat Valley News - Serving Haines and Klukwan, Alaska since 1966

While 1,000 people were enjoying the tastes of the 19th Annual Great Alaska Craft Beer and Homebrew Festival on Saturday, about 100 ale-thirsty visitors were left unsated when the event sold out minutes after opening.

And turning away visitors who traveled to Haines specifically for the event worries some that it scars the event and the town.

"It’s just bad PR for the event," said Ned Rozbicki, Haines Chamber of Commerce president, who wasn’t able to get a ticket when he arrived about an hour after the festival started.

Rozbicki said the chamber board is discussing ways of doing "damage control," such as advertising in Whitehorse and Juneau to apologize to visitors who were turned away at the gates.

But while festival organizers admit the event is experiencing some "growing pains," they see a sold-out event as successful.

"It’s very disappointing and unfortunate for folks not to be able to get in," said Ross Silkman, director of the Southeast Alaska State Fair, sponsor of the event. "But I believe the event is a success if it sells out."

The event sold out last year nearly three hours after it started. This year, the approximately 400 tickets available for purchase at the gate were gone within 10 minutes.

Tickets were available since February for purchase online and about 600 were sold. Advance ticket purchases from Canada take two days to process through the PayPal service, said Silkman. In order to make sure they received all pre-orders in time for the event, organizers halted online sales Thursday evening and posted a notice on the website that said, "Please purchase tickets at the gate."

Organizers said they decided several weeks ago to cap the event at 1,000 tickets because the 11 brewers and two distributors that took part in the tasting needed a crowd estimate so they could order enough beer.

Sheila Good of Juneau and a group of her friends were turned away at the gates after first standing in the wrong line for tickets. Good said at about 50 people back in line, they could not see the "Will Call" sign on the kiosk. When they were re-directed to the purchasing line shortly before 1 p.m. they were told tickets were sold out.

Good said she made motel and ferry reservations for her trip several weeks ago and at that time checked the beer fest website for information. She said she saw the date of the event at the top of the page and information about the beer dinner further down, but didn’t scroll down the page to see the tasting event section. When she heard rumors Thursday night about the event selling out, she tried buying tickets online but saw the message about purchasing tickets at the gate.

Good had tickets to the beer dinner and attended but said she heard nothing about the possibility of the beer tasting being limited or selling out at the gate the next day.

Still, Good admits she should have looked harder at the website to find ticket information. But she said organizers were not sympathetic to visitors they turned away, only telling her that she should have bought advanced tickets.

"I understand that now, but the initial response was ‘This was entirely your fault that you didn’t plan ahead,’" Good said.

Organizers said they met shortly after the event and recognized they could work on publicizing the popularity of the event even more.

"We’ll continue to do our best to advertise that there is potential for this event to sell out," Silkman said.

But Rozbicki said he would like organizers to think about expanding the event to accommodate the growing interest.

"I would love to see them increase capacity substantially," he said.

Silkman said he prefers to keep the alcohol-centered event at about 1,000 capacity because of venue size and beer supply.

But Rozbicki said he would like to see organizers consider subsidizing the breweries if more beer is needed to accommodate increased attendance, expanding the venue into other areas of the fairgrounds and looking at how to accommodate non-drinkers so they can still participate socially in the event. And Rozbicki said also that the entire community – including vendors and restaurants – should help accommodate the growing festival attendance.

"If as a community we decide to roll out the welcome mat, we need to be prepared," he said.

The festival was discussed at length during Tuesday’s meeting of the Downtown Revitalization Committee. Coffee shop owner Lenise Henderson Fontenot said she heard criticism from festival-goers about long lines at restaurants, closed businesses and lack of other things to do during the holiday weekend.

She suggested a Main Street festival or other event could be held during festival weekend.

"We have to make sure the town gets higher marks. We have to rally the businesses and let them know this is a big opportunity."