Hartford’s first weekly beer garden event will end Saturday after attracting more than 6,000 patrons to downtown’s Bushnell Park.
The milestone is considered a major win by the two host breweries, Hog River and Hanging Hills, which held a dozen events between late June and Saturday’s “Oktoberfest-themed” finale.
“People doubted who would come,” Joe Ploof, co-founder of Hanging Hills, said of negative comments he heard prior to the event’s launch on June 28. “Our expectations have been blown out of the water.”
The two South End-breweries said the “pilot” event series, held on Friday evenings, drew an average of 400 to 600 visitors a week after tallying more than 1,500 people on opening day. Organizers, as previously reported, expected about 1,000 visitors that evening.
The beer garden, including hard cider sales from Wallingford’s New England Cider Co., sold an average of just over four barrels (typically 28 gallons) of beer and hard cider per week. Food, meantime, was being served by West Hartford’s Harry’s Pizza.
But confined to the park’s historic “Pump House” during its soft opening, the beer garden’s staff was met by long lines and a lack of space for visitors to lounge and play yard games.
In an effort to resolve crowd issues, one of the event’s avid supporters, Mayor Luke Bronin, urged the breweries to expand the weekly festival around the building on a concrete slab home to the city’s annual Winterfest skating rink. The brewers agreed and dramatically increased their footprint at Bushnell Park in week two of the event.
The breweries also increased their event staff to 16 people to ease crowd concerns.
“When the mayor calls to say you should do something, you almost have to ask him how high you want us to jump,” Ploof joked.
Although attendance tapered off slightly during some of the warmer Fridays in mid-summer, organizers say they drew more visitors than initially projected.
“We were thrilled with the turnout,” said Joy Braddock, who co-owns Hog River with her husband, Ben. “It was clear that people wanted this and they came out to support it, and we couldn’t be happier about it.”
Despite higher-than-expected ticket sales, the brewers and longtime friends are still hoping they will turn a profit on the 13-week event if a large crowd comes out for Saturday’s Oktoberfest from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
As it turns out, operating an outdoor beer festival is a costly endeavor.
Hog River and Hanging Hills have been using revenues from $8 drink tickets and food sales to offset weekly overhead for a staff of 16 part-time workers, police coverage ($1,300) and branded recyclable plastic cups that ran at a cost of about $3,000 every few weeks. Other expenses include entertainment for live bands, DJs, tents and tables, in addition to a portion of revenues being ceded to the Bushnell Park Foundation for maintenance and improvements in the area.
“We were able to break even or possibly turn a profit on 13 days of revenue,” Ploof said. “That just goes to show how excited people were to have an opportunity like this in Hartford.”
Saturday’s finale
Hog River and Hanging Hills are teaming with the Yard Goats to cross-promote their downtown events this weekend.
Under their partnership, the Yard Goats will encourage visitors attending Saturday’s Links at the Yard event at Dunkin’ Donuts Park — which transforms the stadium into a par-3 golf course from Thursday through Sunday — to attend the beer garden event, and the brewers will return the favor for the golf event.
“It’s all about getting people to walk between the two businesses,” Ben Braddock said, “because that is one of our goals, to get people to understand the perks of being in downtown Hartford.”
The first 500 attendees of Saturday’s beer garden will receive a free German-style beer stein. There will be hard cider and six different types of beer for sale, including each of the brewery’s Oktoberfest selections.
“We just wanted to thank the people who had been coming out all summer,” Ploof said.
The brewers will meet this offseason to determine future plans for the beer garden, which they expect to continue in 2020. Ploof said they hope their large investments this year will spur profits in coming seasons.
