Bacon & Beer Festival

So January 2nd, around 2:30 in the afternoon, I get a text from my husband with a link to an article in the local paper written about a new festival coming to town that features Bacon and Beer that will occur February 16th. Those two things are probably in my husband's top 10 favorite things in the world (along with our son and tacos, of course)! There wasn't a whole lot of information in this article besides that it's an event for 21 and over, will feature “thousands of pounds of bacon and more than 100 craft beers from local and national breweries”.

A base ticket was $30 in advance and $35 at the door and included:
– admission for 7pm-10pm
– Pint Glass
– all bacon and beer samples

A VIP ticket was $65 in advance and $70 at the door and included:
– admission for 6pm-10pm
– Pint Glass
– VIP gift (which ended up being a high-quality coaster with a built-in bottle opener)
– Exclusive BLT bar
– Exclusive Bloody Mary bar
– all bacon and beer samples

We also learned that there would be a bacon-eating contest, live music, related games, and awards for Best Bacon Dish and Best Brewery.

One thing I thought was an amazing idea that I haven't seen any other beer festival in town implement was a discounted (around half price) designated driver ticket for people that wanted to come and just sample bacon. I think all the other festivals should take note and follow suit!

Here's how the festival went!
I decided to buy two VIP tickets for my husband and myself and surprise him with them as a Valentine's present. He was so excited because I made him think that we weren't going. They definitely weren't cheap. I ended up spending $154.10 after fees and taxes. I was able to get our tickets on my phone with the Ticketmaster app.

Since we got the VIP tickets, we were able to get in at 6pm. Not knowing how many VIP tickets were for sale/sold, we wanted to show up early to get a parking spot in the parking garage located right next to the venue. We arrived around 5:40 and made our way to front entrance to wait in line. We were within the first 10 people that arrived so it clearly wasn't necessary to arrive too early. I'm not sure why they chose to do things this way, but they sent a couple people out to ID all the people waiting outside in the cold and didn't end up letting the VIPs in until around 6:10.

After we entered, we made our way down to the floor. We knew we wanted to get as many samples as we could before General Admission arrived. And boy are we glad we did. We ended up getting our last few samples around the same time that they opened the doors for everyone else.

We were so full after consuming so much beer and food in such a short amount of time. There were samples of drinks that weren't beer as well including Kinky brand bottled drinks and Not Your Father brand drinks. Food samples included pulled pork sliders, bacon donuts, bacon wrapped chorizo filled dates, bacon wrapped duck, bacon wrapped sausages with 6 sauces to choose from, bacon cheddar chips topped with nacho cheese and bacon, and bacon scones.

During VIP:

After GA started:

The main floor got full fast so we headed up to the VIP lounge where they had an unlimited BLT bar. There were 4 or 5 different kinds of bacon set out, a cheese tray, what looked like toasted slices of baguette, chopped lettuce, and chopped tomatoes.

There was also a Bloody Mary bar. Each VIP ticket holder received 2 tickets for this which could either be used to make 2 Bloody Marys or 1 double. You got the choice of regular or cucumber vodka, the choice of original, loaded, or hot & spicy Bloody Mary mix, and a large selection of “toppings” including bacon, lots of different salt options, celery, pickles, pearl onions, and so much more!

There were a couple places where they had bags/cornhole set up to play including 2 sets in the VIP lounge. Since there was nowhere to sit in the VIP lounge, we took our drinks and food and sat in the stands for a little while. Then we made our way back down to the floor to get seconds of stuff we really liked the first time around!

There was live music during the entire event. It was nothing overly entertaining, but it was great for background noise. Online, it had said there would be a bacon-eating contest, but we never did see it or hear annything about it.

At the end of the night, we got our pint glasses. They're great! And it will be an awesome reminder from the night.

Ending Thoughts: Even though they were a little pricey, we will definitely be getting the VIP tickets every time we go to this event. After having them, I can't even imagine NOT having them. We saw how busy it was and were very thankful to have had that hour with no lines.