Cigar City Hunahpu’s Day – We Can’t Have Nice Things

Hunahpu Day from the perspective of somebody who actually thoroughly enjoyed it.

It may not have been all that smooth but…  It was a beautiful day; there was great beer flowing, great bottles opened, delicious local food to be eaten, and a whole bunch of great people to enjoy it with (No, not everyone, I’m talking to you Mr. Cigar City Sucks).

Quick Timeline of Events…

Saturday

• 11:00 AM – Beer starts flowing
• 4:37 PM – CCB acknowledges issues and vows to make up for it.
• 5:06 PM – Announces to save silver Hunahpu bottle wristband to be compensated.
• 6:55 PM – Announces that all draft beer served Sunday at CCB will be free.

Sunday

• 10:15 AM – Announces ticket refunds

What CCB did wrong

• Encouraging people not to show up before 11:00 AM Saturday morning
  • People who showed up at 11:00 waited until 12:30, this wasn’t even the longest wait but people who showed up before slid right in
• Not having a fence of any sort keeping people from just walking into the festival
  • Yes there were wristbands upon admission, and no nobody paid attention to them
• Only having one person scan tickets for what were at least 5,000 people
  • The line just couldn’t move quickly with only one person taking tickets
• Not having a proper system in place to deny patrons with duplicate tickets
• Having an over two-hour wait to get in for some attendees
  • Many people missed specific tap beers entirely due to this
• Releasing Double Barrel Hunahpu and allowed a full case purchase
  • If regular Hunahpu started at three Double Barrel should’ve been one… More on this later
• Reducing the Hunahpu bottle pick up line from five last year to one massive orgy of a line
  • To be fair there were individual tables but no way to determine which line was headed where
• Not meeting allocations for all attendees of three bottles of hunaphu
  •  This was due in large part to the people there without a ticket and that they opened up case sales before people had an opportunity to get their first three, but they are going to rectify this

Hunahpus Day 2014 – Bottle Line

Hunahpus Day 2014 – Crowd

What CCB did right

Let’s knock these ones out right away

• Threw a huge beer release/festival with amazing beer from all over the country
•  Brewed a stellar Stout among other amazing beers
• Invited other great breweries to a beer release that is supposed to be about them
• Allowed their beer geek following to bring in unlimited bottles for sharing purposes

• Unexpectedly released the Double Barrel version of Hunahpu
  • They didn’t have to do this, and people are acting as if they were entitled to this beer
• Opened up the brewery all day Sunday with free draft beer
  • This was a really rapid response on their part, might not have been the smartest but it shows they were trying
• Refunded every single ticket
  • All tickets are in the process of being refunded, which may or may include the assholes that duplicated tickets. To the tune of $175,000
• They’re brewing another batch of Hunahpu
  • Making good on their promise to get everyone who purchased a ticket three bottles of Hunahpu

This may seem as if the negatives thoroughly outweigh the positives but any beer release doesn’t run 100% smoothly, but the good folk at CCB sure as hell are willing to make up for it where others breweries may not be.

What really stands out is just how rapidly they admitted they messed up and things could have been better for everyone involved, and then even more so took action upon it.

The takeaway from this whole debacle needs to be not what Cigar City did wrong but the true cause for all of this WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS.

This isn’t to say that everyone whom attended was in the wrong but clearly it got that out of hand based on the crowd’s actions and reactions.

It’s just beer people.