The Whistler Village Beer Festival Wraps Up Another Successful Event And Awards Parallel 49 as “Best In Fest”

The Whistler Village Beer Festival celebrated with around 5,000 people during their five-day event, with over 4,000 of them sampling 200 beers at Whistler’s Olympic Plaza this past weekend (approx. 3,000 on the Saturday, and 1,300 on Sunday). Even though Mother Nature brought the rain, brewers brought the beers and people brought their rain boots.

“We did really well on pre-sale tickets this year, we saw our strongest numbers ever,” explains Jordan Stanzack, Gibbons Festival and Events Manager. “We also had more pre-events than we’ve ever had with local businesses really getting involved. Our kick off BBQ at Whistler Brewing, the Deschutes Dinner at the Dubh Linn Gate, and Barley & The Beast event at the Westin Resort & Spa all sold out. We’re really proud to have amazing partners in resort who continue to push this festival forward with us.”

Stanzack goes on to say that they’ll be keeping the two-day main event format, which allows people more time to visit and interact with the breweries; along with the extended live music program they had this year. They know they’ve got a good formula, not only going on the increased ticket sales numbers, but also by generating a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of an incredible 92.5%. This means when they asked “How likely are you to recommend the Whistler Village Beer Festival to a friend?” most people scored it either a nine or 10 (out of 10).

The Best in Fest award winners for 2015 were Vancouver’s Parallel 49 who took first place, Richmond’s Fuggle’s and Warlock Craftworks came in second, and Whistler Brewing Company grabbed third. Voting was done on-site this year with Samsung helping 650 people vote for their favourite brewery. All three breweries will have fresh draught contracts in some of Whistler’s busiest pubs and bars including the Longhorn, Garibaldi Lift Company, Dubh Linn Gate and Tapley’s. This is a huge win for the breweries that get to showcase their beers to a new market, but it’s also a huge bonus for Whistler locals and visitors who get some great beers all at their fingertips.

“At Gibbons we’re all about bringing people together and celebrating,” says Stanzack. “We did this with thousands of visitors, locals, partners, breweries and beer lovers of all kinds. We’ll be working hard to continue making the festival an event our whole community can be proud of, and people from all over the world will want to attend.”