Buy a 23-year-old Portland Beer Festival for only $2K
Even before the pandemic the beer festival scene was tumultuous, in the past few years ahead of the virus many new beer fests had cropped up while others went away. One of those beer festivals is now selling their assets for a paltry $2,000, so if you are banking on coming out of the pandemic alive and people are clamoring to go to big events again than this might be your ticket to beervana.
The Spring Beer & Wine Festival was one of Oregon’s largest and longest running beer festivals for 23 years. The festival combined craft beer, wine, spirits, and just about any type of vendor that wanted to show up to the Oregon Convention Center over Easter weekend. After the 2017 Spring Beer and Wine Festival the event called it quits, but owner Steve Woolard kept in the beer business as the owner of the Carts on Foster where he ran his own Pod Bar for the last 11 years. But Woolard has decided to retire, and has not only sold the Carts on Foster but is putting the Spring Beer & Wine Fest assets on sale too.
On facebook the festival writes:
We have 3000 glasses and mugs and 100 pitchers to start your own Fest. I am asking only $2000. For the whole lot. You also get a web site that has over 5000 followers. The glasses sold for $6. And then you make money selling the beer on top of that. Fun and profit! 503 853 3541 for more info.
Of course those assets are only a drop in the bucket towards how much the festival would actually cost to put on, if you become a non-profit event then you can ask for beer donations but otherwise would need to purchase tens of thousands of dollars in kegs. Factor on the cost of the event space, tables, chairs, banners, staff, ice, draft supplies, and marketing dollars and you will have a better idea of what it takes to put on a beer festival. With many beer festival organizers taking yet another year off from being able to put on their events, you can expect many won’t be returning. So let’s raise a toast for those who put on these beer fests that make us happy for year upon year and not take them for granted in the future.