Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

Inaugural 'City Made Fest' So Popular It Temporarily Ran Out of Beer

By Erica Demarest | September 23, 2013 11:48am
  The two-day debut festival focused on Chicago craft brews, music and artisans. About 7,500 attended.
City Made Fest
View Full Caption

ANDERSONVILLE — City Made Fest made such a popular debut in Andersonville this weekend that organizers were left scrambling for two very important staples  — beer and Porta Potties.

“We had fantastic attendance," said Jason Cox, assistant director of the Andersonville Chamber of Commerce. "We sold out most of our beer on Saturday and had to restock on Sunday, which was kind of a fun problem to have."

Cox estimates that 7,500 people attended the two-day Chicago-centric festival, which highlighted local craft beer, music and artisans. About 5,000 people made the suggested $5 donation at the festival's gates, Cox said.

Several beer kegs were tapped out by Saturday evening. Larger breweries — including Revolution Brewing — were able to deliver more early Sunday. But that didn't work as well for a handful of small-scale brewers.

"It's not like they have some big warehouse that can give us several more" kegs, Cox said. "Once those were gone, those were gone."

As for the Porta Potties — let's just say the eight units organizers had ordered weren't exactly pleasant by the end of Saturday. Those were cleaned and emptied Sunday, and four more were added.

When asked if he was surprised by the festival's huge turnout, Cox said:

"Doing events in Andersonville as long as I have — we have a really supportive community. If anywhere was going to have a great first-time festival, this neighborhood would be the one that could pull it off."

So will City Made Fest — which was organized by the Andersonville Chamber of Commerce and Andersonville Development Corp. — become an annual event?

"We haven’t talked about it yet," Cox said, "but it was so awesome and we got such great feedback from people, that I would say yes."