Holsten Brewery Fest

My employer had planned and organised the first Brewery open day in 2011 with my colleague as project manager. I took over from the fifth until the eighth and final event in 2018. During that period my team and I developed the Brewery Fest further and took it from a purely non-ticketed two-day open day to a more complex three-day event with a ticketed concert on the Friday night, the well established open Brewery on Saturday with two large stages catering to different tastes of music, guided tours by brewery staff, brand-related games, beer tastings and plenty of food, and a relaxed Sunday with craft beers from local micro breweries that were invited to the historic brewery in the heart of Hamburg’s Altona district.

It became one of my favourite events, as it involved close cooperation with our client the Holsten brewery. It was fun challenging our creativity to make the Holsten brand become alive. I love the district Altona where I also live, the old brewery as the event site and the attention to detail with which we were able to put everything together. You might think that attention to detail is a quality you either have or you don’t, but my experience is that with events, the budget often dictates to what level you can take it. I feel that the framework gave us the freedom to put together a beautiful event that the attendees were looking forward to every year.

Another aspect I learned to appreciate through this project was our agency’s in-house booker, who together with the project team put together a line up, that was special every year. The genre was mostly indie and rock and the occasional pop-music act put together with decades of experience and passion for the craft. We played around with the programme over the years and worked out what the audience liked best and which acts would drive beer sales and attendance up. As a full service agency our colleagues from the peersonnel management and drinks logictics unit were managing all beer stalls and would report to me as the project manager. We evaluated the numbers and cross referenced beer sales, attendee numbers and musical programme, which was a lot of fun.

Sadly the brewery moved away from Altona to the outscirts of the city. SOme of the historic buildings will be preserved and the brewery is planning a micro-brewery on the site, which will become a residential area. I miss the event and am planning to hopefully put on a similar event with a new partner or client. We will see.