News

This year’s Craft Beer and Food festival took place on Saturday 4 October. The event has been hailed as a success by organisers and attendees alike.

The Critic team thoroughly enjoyed themselves, finding some new favourite brews, including Garage Project’s Tournesol and Green Man Brewery’s Tequila Beer. The culinary selection was also fantastic with over 20 different food stalls.

The music from local bands kept the atmosphere buzzing. Che-Fu and the Kratez did not come on until after 5pm which, as it was advertised that this would be their start time, may have delayed the attendance of a few beer enthusiasts.

OUSA used wristbands as a form of payment “to keep queues short and minimise staff time needed to process individual transactions.” The queues were exceptionally minimal. There was also a policy in place of no refunds after the festival if under $5 was left on peoples’ bands. Attendees were offered to spend their money, organise a refund on the day or give their residual to the charity. Through residual wristband income, Rape Crisis collected $2,088 on the day.

Despite the event being excellent, it is questionable as to whether students, who only made up a third of ticket sales, should be funding such an event that uses so much of the OUSA Events team’s time throughout the year. OUSA would not reveal the exact number of tickets sold, due to commercial sensitivity, but the budgeted loss of $16,000 was based on all 5,000 tickets selling out, which they did not. OUSA President Ruby Sycamore-Smith explains that even though there were fewer students than general admissions, “[the number of students] is much greater than in previous end-of-year events – like we could only cater for 250 students at the Wingatui Races.”

Sycamore-Smith says, “It’s year two, the template for the event is superb, the price is right, so we think we can get even more students along next year.” A number of students told Critic they could not attend the event due to the high entry price. Entry for students is $25, with beer tastings of 150ml costing between $2.50 and $5 per tasting.

She adds, “It’s the best value craft beer and food festival in the country for what it offers.”

Despite the excellent organisation of the event, Critic also questioned whether OUSA’s Events team should be the ones running it considering it has been the focus of the team this year to the detriment of having many more student-focused events.

Sycamore-Smith responded, “OUSA will always look at various aspects to increase the student experience in Dunedin, further into the wider Dunedin community, which has become their new home.

“[The Beer Festival] contributes to our strategic imperatives for high quality events, events that attract all students, not just undergrads, and is part of our town and gown push to get students seen as an integral part of the city.”

Sycamore-Smith said that in 2015 there would not be as much time spent on the event because, “like all our events, once we get them established and running well, they take much less work.”