Wrap-up: Highs & lows of the Great American BBQ & Beer Fest

I feel hopeful, and a little sorry, for the Great American BBQ & Beer Festival.

On one hand, the third-year event continues to grow. Organizers say a record 12,000 people attended Saturday’s eight-hour fest in downtown Chandler.

On the other hand, for every problem the oft-beleaguered event tries to address, another seems to spring up.

An example: In an effort to reduce the long lines at the gate last year, organizers decided to create three gates this year – on the north, south and east sides of A.J. Chandler Park. Problem solved, right?

Except the city fire marshal refused to let the gates open at noon Saturday, delaying the start of the fest for 30 minutes as the lines to get in (pictured) grew to several hundred people. At a standstill. In nearly 90-degree heat.

One step forward, one step back.

Whether or not people had an enjoyable time Saturday seemed to depend, in great part, on what time they were there.

My experience generally was good. I arrived around 12:15 and found plenty of open parking spots only 100 yards from the south gate. By the time I got my ticket and got to the gate, people were pouring in.

The beer

Food was cash-only, but you needed to buy tickets for alcohol (and get the requisite 21-and-over wrist band) at special booths. Unfortunately, nothing was explained to festivalgoers at the gate, and there were no notices or signs inside the fest.

(Compounding the problem, one of the two booze vendors showed up late and didn’t have its stations set up when gates opened.)

This was a major source of confusion for attendees: At one of the beer tables I visited early on, at least half the people who came up to buy a beer were turned away, often understandably frustrated, because they didn’t know they needed a wristband.

Beers were a little pricy – $5 for a 12-ounce draft or can (all Arizona craft beers, a nice touch) – but there was no shortage of imbibers. By late afternoon, the beer lines were quite long.

SanTan Brewing‘s seasonal Mr. Pineapple, a pineapple wheat beer (pictured), made its 2012 debut at the festival and was quite popular. From what I observed, it outsold other beers by about a 2-to-1 margin.

The BBQ

The 50 or so BBQ vendors – a mix of restaurants, caterers, and food trucks – were organized in a T-shaped layout up and down both sides of Arizona Avenue and east down the middle of Commonwealth Avenue.

All vendors were required to offer $2 samples and $5 mini plates (a slider and a side). They also could sell anything off their regular menu. Unfortunately, several vendors chose to ignore the mandate and only offered the more-expensive items.

The majority complied, however, and portions were surprisingly generous. At the McReynolds Farms booth, I got more than a quarter-pound of delicious pulled pork (pictured) for just $2. (Pork was the days’s No. 1 offering – by far – with beef running second.)

I sampled the BBQ from several booths, but there was far too much to try all of it. Highlights for me, besides McReynolds, included the beef (with a Mr. Pineapple BBQ sauce) from SanTan Brewing and the pulled pork (with regular and super-spicy sauces) from Superstition Farm‘s food truck (pictured below).

Odds & ends

The organizers deserve credit for trying to address many of the concerns of the festival’s first two years. Most importantly: The event didn’t run out of food this year.

But despite increasing a number of amenities threefold – gates, beer stations, portable restrooms, etc. – many attendees still encountered long lines, especially for beer.

From talking to people at the fest or afterward, a few other complaints also were common:

• Like most culinary fests in the Valley, there was virtually no seating available. People were forced to stand and eat while balancing a heaping plate in one hand and a drink in the other.

• Parents with young children didn’t like the foul language used on stage by the national musical acts (Buck-O-Nine, VooDoo Glowskulls, Goldfinger, and Face To Face) at what was billed as a family-friendly event.

• There was a shortage of volunteers working the fest, forcing many to continue to work long after their four-hour shifts were supposed to be over.

Final thoughts

In some respects, the BBQ & Beer Festival is a victim of its own success, but organizers need to get ahead of the curve.

Many MXSW readers have emailed me, asking how Saturday’s fest was. They stopped going after bad experiences last year or the year before. They won’t return, they say, until the event runs smoothly.

That’s at least another year away.

The good sign is these people are still interested in the fest. The big question is how long they will remain so.