08/21/2014
Hop Madness 2014 is canceled. This was a very tough decision to make, but due to low pre-festival ticket sales it's become clear that we're not going to get anywhere close to breaking even this year. Let me give you a little back story. First off Hop Madness has never really been a money making event. We've always broken just about even if you don't count the time that Brian and I put into running the event. When I took over hosting Hop Madness 5 years ago I was made aware of the situation from the previous organizer. The event was held at Willamette Mission Park and after you got done paying for fees for the park, bringing in fresh hop bines, and insurance the event lost about 50 bucks. In the following years we did more advertising and putting posters for the event up all over the place and we weren't able to raise the number of attendees up past 100. We got an offer to move the event over to the Rogue Hop Farm and our costs dropped down a bit, but we were still just barley breaking even. I didn't do this to make a profit, I did it because I love the event and I have a great time hanging out with all the people that show up.
Second, Hop Madness used to be the only beer related event in August. About 3 years ago that all started to change. More and more events have started happening and I believe it's siphoned off some of the hard core Hop Madness people/groups away from the event. This years confirmed attendance is 19 people. If I was to hold it, it would be anywhere from $300-450 out of my pocket, if not more. I'd love to be crazy rich and host this event anyways for the people that want to go, but that just isn't in the cards. That's one of the biggest factors that has lead to the tough tough tough decision to cancel the event.
Next I have to give a big thanks to Rogue. When I realized that we weren't going to get the attendance we needed to put on this event I contacted them to find out what my losses would be. They stated since we've been a great event to have over the years they would refund my deposit and wouldn't hold me liable for the event. That is just plain outstanding customer service and I was floored by their generosity. Please support them and let them know you're thankful for the way they have treated Hop Madness. If you have time, head over to their page and let them know what a wonderful company they are and that their staff at the Hop Farm and event coordinators are awesome.
Finally, I don't know what the future of Hop Madness is going to be. Will it be back in 2015 or is it finally time to retire the event? Do we turn this into a bi-yearly thing? What do we do to make the event more popular? Washington and California have events like this that are attended by hundreds of homebrewers, what's Oregon doing wrong? There's a lot of questions I don't have the answers to. I do know one thing, I would love some help figuring out the future of the event. If you want to help create some sort of "advisory council" please contact me or reply to this post and I will reach out to you in the next few weeks.
If you have already purchased a ticket for this years Hop Madness event, I will be issuing refunds sometime over the next few days. I'm trying to find out from Paypal if I can issue refunds with the fees restored. Don't worry, this post is my pledge to you to make sure you get every single cent back. All of your money will be refunded even if I have to drive over to your house and issue a refund in person. If you haven't received a refund by 8/31, feel free to contact or publicly shame me.
It's been a great 11 years of the event. Hopefully there will be a 12th year somewhere in the future.
Hoppy Trails (oh god I used a pun, I'm sorry)
-Chris
