Brewery Events & Summer Concerts with MAP Brewing (Podcast)

Lisa: Welcome to Ticketbud Tidbits, where we share tips, advice and insights from event organizers, for event organizers.

I’m your host, Lisa Carson. If you’re joining us for the first time, welcome! For our returning listeners, welcome back! We have another great episode for you today.

In this episode, we talk to Loy Maierhauser. Loy joins us from MAP Brewing in Bozeman, Montana, where she manages private and public events at the brewery. Loy has had a great deal of experience working in the brewing industry. She is a certified cicerone, and enjoys attending beer events and competitions, as a beer judge.

In addition to working at MAP Brewing, Loy has her own events company, Fermentana, a beer and all things fermented events planning and promotions company. Their events include Craft Beer Week in Bozeman, and a women only education series called Beer Maven. The company also does conference planning for the Montana Brewers Association, and the Craft Maltsters Guild.

Loy’s title at MAP Brewing encompasses the versatility of her role. She is the Administrator of Many Things. In addition to event planning, she is the Assistant Tap Room Manager. She manages their sensory program, looks after merchandise, and helps with social media management.

With a background working as a teacher, Loy has a passion for education, but now in a newfound arena. Loy loves to educate people about beer, whether it’s her staff at MAP, or at her Beer Maven classes.

In the episode, Loy talks about her role at MAP Brewing, as well as her events company, Fermentana. She shares her experience as a certified beer judge, and working as a female in a male-dominated industry. Loy walks us through the range of events she manages at MAP Brewing, including this summer’s sellout Backyard Concert Series.

Loy addresses challenges and learnings from this first year of running the event, and how they will evolve it, to improve the experience next year. Loy talks about her role, the event planning process, helpful tools, and reverse engineering from event day backwards, to help you establish deadlines.

She also shares her reasons for working with Ticketbud, and why they will continue to do so.

When Loy is not working on something beer-related, you may find her traveling around to find the best dive bars in Montana, kayaking, snowboarding, or volunteering at the Montana Raptor Conservation Center. I hope you enjoy listening to my chat with Loy. Here it is!

Lisa: Welcome to the podcast, Loy!

Loy: Thank you.

Lisa: You’re joining us from MAP Brewing Company, in Bozeman, Montana today.

Loy: Yeah.

Lisa: I haven’t made it up to Montana, as I said to you. I’m really excited to get out there at some point. Now I have another destination to go to. It’s lovely to have you joining us.

Let’s chat a little bit about you. First of all, I love your title. The Administrator of Many Things at MAP Brewing.

Loy: Yeah. We’re definitely a small operation, so pretty much all of us do everything, or a little bit of everything, whatever is needed.

Lisa: We’ll talk about your role managing events a little bit more, in a minute. But I wanted to highlight some of the other things that you do. You are Assistant Taproom Manager. Is that managing the tasting room?

Loy: Yeah. I kind of help out our front of house manager, with everything that she does. I manage on her days off, and just assist her in hiring and scheduling, and everything else that comes along with that.

Lisa: You also do designing and organizing merchandise and social media, and brewery newsletters?

Loy: Yep, a little bit of that. One of our owners really enjoys that kind of stuff, so again, I just kind of help all of that flow smoothly, help bring his merchandise designs to life, and help with ordering and all of that, and designing marketing materials and that kind of stuff.

Lisa: What is the sensory program that you help manage?

Loy: Sensory, basically we’re tasting the beer before it goes out into the tasting room, or into bars and other restaurants and things like that. So, just making sure we’re creating a quality and consistent product. It’s just setting up wine tastings for a group of folks that work at the brewery, who then help identify issues before they become a big issue, or just giving the green light to beers, before we put them out into the public eye.

Lisa: You’re also one of the founding partners of Fermentana, which is a beer and all things fermented events planning and promotions company. You organized Craft Beer Week in Bozeman, Montana and a women only beer education series called Beer Maven.

Can you tell us a bit about that role, and what events you’ve been involved in planning and promoting?

Loy: That’s lovingly referred to as my side hustle. My business partner and I – her name is Jesse Bussard – we started Fermentana because Bozeman didn’t have a Craft Beer Week, even though we have the most breweries of any town in Montana. So, we felt like Craft Beer Week was something that Bozeman really needed.

So, we started our business as a way to organize Craft Beer Week. Then, we kind of grew our business into doing these education classes. Beer Maven is one of my personal favorites. I love doing those women only education courses, and teaching people about beer.

We also do some conference planning, helping with Brewfest planning, some consulting, smaller events planning, all of it having to do with beer and other fermented goods.

Lisa: I should mention that you’re a certified beer judge, through the beer judging certification program. What events and activities have you participated in as a beer judge?

Loy: I have judged both commercial competitions and home-brew competitions. I’ve judged the North American Brewers awards, the Best of Craft Beer awards, and then a smattering of homebrew competitions here and there.

Judging helps me keep my beer palate kind of fine-tuned, and helps with the sensory program we were just talking about. The more I’m judging beer, the more I’m kind of critically tasting beer, which is helpful for that judging, as well. So yeah, that’s a really fun little perk.

Lisa: Nice! I love it. I can imagine that most beer judges, I would have thought would be men. I love the idea of a woman turning up, saying “I’m going to judge beer now.”

Loy: I think the craft beer industry is definitely diversifying, both with women and people of color. It’s really cool to see the industry kind of looking at themselves with a critical eye, and being open to really expanding. But it definitely is still a male-dominated industry, for sure.

Lisa: Can you tell us a little bit about MAP Brewing Company, and it’s location? It looks really pretty. I’ve had a look on the website. It looks beautiful.

Lisa: I know. It’s funny, because we get quite a few folks that are visiting the area, who come through here, and I frequently get told how lucky I am, that this is my job. I get to drink beer and look at a gorgeous view, and I get paid to do it. So, it’s not all bad, for sure.

We’re a relatively new brewery. We started in October of 2015, so we’re just coming up on our four year anniversary. I joined on about a year and a half after they opened, starting as the Tap Room Manager, and then kind of shifting into some other roles.

We are located on the north side of Bozeman. We’re kind of right on this park with a pond, and right on the edge of the Bridger Mountain Range, so we have a pretty stellar view, for sure.

Lisa: That patio looks amazing.

Loy: It’s a good place to spend an afternoon, for sure. And our brewing team makes some pretty incredible beer, so it’s definitely a team I’m really proud to be a part of.

Lisa: Part of the marketing strategy of the brewing company is that they host a number of different events. Obviously, that’s to potentially draw more customers in, from concerts or community pint nights, or guest speakers. Can you tell us a bit about the different types of events you offer?

Loy: We do a lot of events, here at MAP Brewing. I would say they kind of fall into a couple of different realms. We host weekly live music, and that’s one of those consistent things. Every Sunday, every Tuesday, we host live music. Folks who enjoy attending that kind of a thing just know that that’s going to be happening.

We also definitely provide a space for organizations to host different events. The one that comes to mind that has been super successful, is we’ve partnered with the Bozeman Public Library a couple of times, to do Trivia Nights. They did a sci-fi trivia evening, which was really fun. They did a banned books trivia, which was really fun.

We have kind of like a mezzanine upstairs area. It’s open to the rest of the taproom, but it’s a little bit separated. That’s a great space for organizations to host events like that. That is the type of event – I put that in a different realm than our music, because most of the planning was done by the Bozeman Public Library.

So, we kind of act as a host to organizations that need a community space. And then, we do this summer, which we’ll talk about a little bit later, too – but we started a concert series outside, which was a bigger task than the smaller scale events that we usually do.

Lisa: You said to me, about speakers, as well. Guest speakers come in?

Loy: Yeah. We’ve had a couple different things. As a brewery, we are connected to ecological resources, things like water. All of the folks that work here are very outdoors-centric people, so we’ve definitely had some speakers here, talking about conservation issues, in terms of water or public lands, and that kind of thing.

Lisa: This was the first year you held the MAP Brewing Backyard Concert series. This was a summer concert series, with six shows held over July and August. Why did you guys decide to create a summer concert series? What were the key objectives? How did you measure success?

Loy: This has been definitely a dream of one of our owners, for a couple of summers now, wanting to do a bigger kind of concert outside. You’ve seen the pictures of our patio. There’s sort of a natural amphitheater in this little hill that goes down to the pond. It is a really incredible natural background, to just relax and enjoy some live music on a summer evening.

This summer, we decided to go for it, and plan these six shows. We did Wednesday nights. During the summer, there’s so much going on. Downtown Bozeman has concerts on Thursday nights, and trying not to step on anyone else’s toes, in terms of events happening around town. So, Wednesday seemed like a good evening for us to host that.

Just coming up with the whole scheme of getting that stage down right by the water, so they were as close to the water as they could get, in that beautiful setting.

Lisa: What was the idea behind the concert? To get more of a community at these events? To get new people to come out it? What was the thinking behind it?

Loy: I think that at the heart of it, wanting to provide our community with a really memorable and pleasant concert experience. We have a couple indoor concert venues, and there’s another brewery in town that has hosted some really nice concerts outside. But we just wanted to give our hometown community an event that showcases what Montana is about; live music, beautiful setting, great beer.

We felt like we could kind of manifest that.

Lisa: How do you sort of capitalize on the success of it? I know it went well. You obviously have all of the contact details of people who came to those events. How are you going to build on that?

Loy: We learned a lot of lessons, as you do the first time you execute anything. So, I think for us coming away with learnings on – it was an outdoor lawn concert. So for example, for the first concert, we maybe didn’t clearly communicate that. It was a lawn concert, that we weren’t providing chairs.

Having that contact information, and being able to drop everyone a line before the concert and just kind of give them the rundown, like “Hey, bring a blanket or a folding chair. It’s going to be cash only, once you’re inside the event, so make sure you swing by an ATM!”

Lisa: Managing that communication.

Loy: yeah. Being able to communicate that, especially for us, with each event, as we were kind of learning what we needed to do, it was really helpful to be able to do that.

Lisa: Even though you’ve got it on the website, there’s always people who forget about it until just before the event. They’re like “What? I needed to bring a chair? What?”

Loy: And I’m totally guilty of this, too. If I just see something I want to go to, I don’t read the paragraph. I’m like “Oh! I love this band! I’ll go to that.” Click, and show up, and forget something.

It will be nice, too, thinking in the future. The people who came to this years’ concerts are going to be the people who are going to keep coming to the concerts. So, we have the ability to give them first access to tickets, because they attended last year. Having that contact information stored is going to be super helpful with next year’s series, as well.

Lisa: And you’ve got more chance to lead up, and more chance for them to tell other people about it, as well.

Loy: Exactly.

Lisa: What was the atmosphere that you created at these concerts? Can you sort of describe it? I know it was a family-friendly event. There was like a beer/wine garden area.

Loy: We called it the Backyard Concert series, and I think we sort of took that backyard ethos to heart. People brought blankets and chairs. Families were welcome, so there were always little groups of kiddoes playing.

Having that beer and wine garden was lovely, because people could enjoy MAP beers, and had the ability to enjoy wine, as well, and just kind of relax in that really backyard feel, that relaxed feeling that you have drinking a beer on your own patio, maybe, but with the addition of a live band and a pretty awesome backdrop.

Lisa: What was your role in managing the concert series?

Loy: I was the day of person in charge, so definitely handling all of the day of execution of the events. In terms of leading up to the events, we definitely divided and conquered. Our owner was in charge of finding the bands, and kind of handling the music aspects. He also was in touch with the stage lighting and sound companies, to kind of handle the logistics of all of that.

The stage company actually left the stage set up all summer, which was nice, because they didn’t have to then come in and out every single week, to set that stage up. Once the doors opened, checking on everyone, making sure everything is flowing well.

Lisa: How far out did planning start?

Loy: I think that we started really diving into planning, in February and March. Nailing down bands for dates was definitely the first task.

Lisa: That was the first thing.

Loy: Yeah. That was the first step, because we decided on Wednesdays, so we had to find – we use bands from the Bozeman area, or kind of from southwest Montana.

Lisa: So, they’re all local.

Loy: Yeah. We did use all local bands. Then, once we had the bands all kind of settled into different dates, we hired a designer to create a really beautiful poster, to advertise. Then, we were able to start building around the bands. The bands were definitely the key thing to set in place first.

Lisa: Did you have any tips or tools, for keeping on top of everything? Anything that you used in particular?

Loy: The owner that I was working with, his name is Dash. Dash and I were working closely together, the whole time. We’re a great team, because he’s very visionary, and I’m definitely more detailed, like “How are we going to make this happen?” So, we are a good partnership.

Lisa: You always need one or the other!

Loy: Exactly. So, we kind of set out a timeline at the beginning, when we first met. He was like “This is the summer! We’re going to do this!” I was like “Great! Let’s create a timeline.”

We just sort of backwards-planned. If we want to execute on these days, we need to have all of the promotional materials done by this day. We need to have bands done by this day. We need to make sure the sound is good to go, on this day.

So yeah, just kind of building that timeline backwards. I would say we did not excel at using a platform called Trello, but that definitely helped us keep everything organized. I think that, again, we have a lot to learn in how we could efficiently use that, but that was a really great way for us to kind of organize all the tasks under each to-do list.

You’ve got to-do lists for the bands and to-do lists for the logistics and to-do lists for signage. Organizing all of that in Trello was helpful for us.

Lisa: Trello is good, and Monday.com is really good for doing stuff like that, as well.

Loy: I’ve heard that, too.

Lisa: I use that.

Loy: Really?

Lisa: It’s definitely worth checking out. Something about it is very visually appealing, and it’s easy to just run through tasks and get stuff one. You create different boards.

Loy: Helpful, and it’s nice to look at.

Lisa: Yeah. Helpful and when you look at it, it’s like “Done, done, done.”

Loy: Love it!

Lisa: You mentioned that obviously there were learnings along the way. What were some of the key challenges and learnings, from doing this the first time? And how do you think you will improve things? Obviously, communication was one.

Loy: Yeah. That was definitely something that we had kind of all of the details. On the Ticketbud page, we had the details, and on each Facebook event, we had the details. But again, people don’t necessarily read that. So, what’s the best way to continually communicate that really important information to people?

Also, we have some interesting laws, with the alcohol, which most states do. The way that we got our permits to be able to serve alcohol on the lawn is that alcohol from the brewery couldn’t go into the lawn, and alcohol from the lawn couldn’t go into the brewery. For folks who don’t know that law or who are unfamiliar with that, that feels frustrating.

So, coming up with systems for us on how are we clearly communicating the alcohol portion, and just the laws we have to work around for that, was a little tricky. And then, we were selling tickets in-house, physical tickets as well as online tickets. So, especially the last show sold out way ahead of time, and trying to figure out systems for balancing that.

Like keeping an eye on how many tickets are for sale in the taproom, and how many are online, and figuring out where that line is, where they fill out.

Lisa: Yeah, don’t oversell!

Loy: Right. Those were some of our kind of biggest issue learnings, and problems that we need to solve, for sure.

Lisa: When you were selling tickets in the taproom, were you inputting those sales into Ticketbud?

Loy: No. We were not. We were doing that with ticket sales at the door, but not with the ones that we were selling inhouse.

Lisa: Something you can do next time, I know there’s an ability to do that, so that you can be inputting, if you’re selling tickets at the door, so you can see at least that you’re not going over. It sort of counts toward your limit.

Loy: I think being able to have our bartenders do that, as well, would be awesome.

Lisa: You obviously worked with Ticketbud for the event ticketing. What were the benefits of working with a ticketing company, to help manage some of this?

Loy: Hands down, the customer service was phenomenal.

Lisa: You worked with Blake.

Loy: I worked with Blake, who I cannot sing enough of Blake’s praises, because he was awesome, and just answered any questions, super helpful. We had an all-event pass, so someone could buy a discounted ticket, and that would count as a ticket for each concert. Blake was super helpful in kind of troubleshooting that, and figuring out how to do that on Ticketbud.

Hands down, the customer service aspect of making that happen. Having the funds sent weekly, and not having to worry about that; all I did was get an email that was a summary, and being able to track that way. This concert series is the first time that we had looked at Ticketbud, maybe even heard of it. And for Fermentana, we’ve used other ticketing sites, and so when we started doing this, it was the first real ticketed event we’ve done at MAP. I was like, oh we’ve used these other things and I’m familiar with them. But then Ticketbud got good reviews and after chatting with Blake I was like, let’s go for it, I think this will be great. I think with Fermentana stuff now, we do a lot of ticketed events with that, so we’ll probably start shifting over. Just because there are so many options. Being able to take tickets at the door, with cards, through Ticketbud, was huge, so that we weren’t trying to do that through our POS in the taproom, or anything like that. Being able to do that all physically, in the lawn, at the door, was amazing.

The way we would kind of set up coming in to the concert, once the doors opened, we would have one line that was checking in tickets, and then one line that was for purchase. That was a great way for us to keep it moving.

Lisa: You also had a picnic dinner available. Was that something people pre-ordered? How did they organize that on the day?

Loy: We talked about that, and I’m sure that will come up again next year, about potentially including it in the ticket, or something like that. We did not, this time. We just had it for sale, once you came in. Food was available, and the beer and wine.

Lisa: Tell us a bit about the promotion for the events. What sort of channels did you use to get the word out? Because it’s obviously the first time it’s been run, so you’re sort of explaining what it is?

Loy: We don’t do a ton of print promotion here at MAP Brewing, just in general. We did some print posters just to hang around town at coffee shops and stuff. And then, just social media. It’s all about getting stuff out on social media.

We have a pretty good following on Instagram and Facebook, so just getting the word out that way. And then, we have little table tents on the tables in the brewery, that have information about events, so putting it on there, as well.

Lisa: Did you do paid social media, or was it just on your own channels?

Loy: We did do some paid social media. We don’t do a ton of that, but we definitely did some sponsored posts for this, especially because the majority of the tickets we were selling were online, ahead of time. We did raise the ticket price at the door, to try and encourage people to buy their tickets ahead of time. By having that easy Click-thru on Facebook, to just click straight through to Ticketbud, to buy the tickets, was really helpful.

Lisa: What were the production logistics on the day?

Loy: We had to set up a physical barrier, so we actually that orange construction, kind of like snow fencing, that we would have to unroll on these stakes, and set up a physical barrier. That was required of us by the city, because of the alcohol permitting. So, we had to have that physical barrier, so getting that set up.

The stage was already there. The sound and light guys would come in and just kind of set up on their own. Then, it was just setting up all of the little details. We had signage out on the lawn. We set signage up at the front gate, saying “Check in here,” “Buy your tickets here.” Setting all of that stuff up, and then just helping the catering company get set up with their beer and wine service, bringing the food out.

We had some t-shirts made, so bringing the merchandise out. Somehow, all of that ended up taking most of the day.

Lisa: And there’s always things that pop up, that you don’t expect to deal with, as well.

Loy: Exactly.

Lisa: Do you plan to run this event next year, as well?

Loy: Yeah. I think that one thing we’re going to do is, we’re going to do fewer. We did six this past summer. I think we’re going to cut that back a little bit, and try and just do fewer, but bigger. So, maybe look to bringing in some bigger regional acts, and do the bigger shows.

Lisa: The other thing I was going to ask you about was, as a woman of many talents, you also do conference planning for the Montana Brewers Association and the Craft Maltsters Guild.

Loy: Yeah.

Lisa: What are some of the different things you’ve got to consider, when you’re planning a conference?

Loy: Conference planning is its own beast. Now that I’m thinking about this, conference planning is sort of like this concert series, in that you have to kind of get speakers, and then you can fill everything else in. But finding a great keynote speaker, and that kind of thing, is a really important first step. Then, you can kind of build around that.

In conference planning, you’re still providing that whole experience, but it’s just over the course of a few days. So, we have tried really hard to create some systems, or some fun things that engage people. Forced networking can feel really annoying, at first. Then, once people really dive into it, then tend to relax and have a good time, and feel like that was useful.

So, providing some opportunities for people to connect with each other, and sort of force them to do so, because in the end, I think they appreciate it.

Lisa: Engagement is a big thing with conferences, whether it’s networking with other people or whether it’s booths or different companies, or sponsors. It’s trying to find different ways to encourage that. What sort of things have you worked with, in terms of engagement strategies?

Loy: Engagement during sessions, honestly, having candy on tables. Giving people little sugary boosts, little snacks, maybe doing granola bars or apples or whatever, is really helpful. In each room, we have little contests going. We’ll have “Count the bottle caps for a chance to win a prize from our sponsors!”

We’ve tried some bingo-type things for the trade show portion. This year, we’re thinking about creating a little more competitive with that, grouping people by maybe region. So, if you come from this region in Montana, this whole area, whoever gets the most bingo stamps from your region gets something, and that kind of thing.

Lisa: Creating some gamification, getting people to compete and have fun, I think that’s a good idea.

Loy: One thing that’s been really fun, which is an idea that I got from a different conference that I went to, was a swag swap. Everybody brings a t-shirt or a hat or something from their brewery or their company, and then we kind of organize them into something that looks like a store. Then, if you brought something, you get to go get something.

That’s a good way to connect all of those pieces.

Lisa: That’s a good idea. I also like to get some general advice from guests on the show, for other event organizers listening. What are some tips and advice you have for event organizers, when it comes to promoting and managing a concert series?

Loy: For us this first year, we weren’t really sure what to expect, in terms of attendance, or even just no idea what to expect. So, we did, I think, not max out our marketing. We went pretty simple, just with posters and on social media. I think, forward-thinking for next year, being able to put things out on the radio. Our college radio station here has incredible listenership, so that’s a really great avenue for advertising something like that.

I think thinking about who you want to attend. This concert series was definitely, again, that backyard vibe, very family friendly. So, I think a huge market for us was younger families in the Bozeman area, so thinking of ways that we can target them to come to this super family-friendly fun summer event.

And then, just managing the events. It’s all about that backwards planning, and creating those deadlines for yourself.

Lisa: So that it’s not all crazy at the last minute.

Loy: Yeah. And I think, honestly, a year’s worth of time, I mean, I know we didn’t plan with a full year for this last one. But thinking about if people want to do a summer concert or concert series, or music series, or whatever it is, to start now. Because all of a sudden, things come up.

Lisa: Summer is upon you!

Loy: Yeah. All of a sudden, it’s the holidays, and then it’s January, and then it’s March, and then it’s May. So, I think even a year, to put something together, that’s good.

Lisa: And you probably have more options, with things like bands, getting in there early.

Loy: Exactly. Especially for us, we’re starting to look now for next year, because we are looking to move toward some of the bigger regional acts, to draw a larger crowd, as well. So, doing that now. A lot of those bigger bands get booked out super far in advance.

Lisa: What career advice would you like to give to your younger self? I always ask guests this.

Lisa: I think, go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Isn’t that a famous quote? I was an elementary school teacher. I worked in elementary education for a while, and always kind of wanted to be in the brewery industry. I think with some organization that I learned in the education field, the event planning comes really naturally to me.

So, I think kind of diverging from this path, for me, right out of college, “I want to be a teacher!” And then, getting into it for like five years, and kind of being like “I don’t know if this is for me,” it was hard. But advice for my younger self is jump in, and go in the direction you think you want to be in.

Lisa: I definitely think sometimes people start down a path, and they think “I’ve invested in this, so I should keep going.” I’m sure they quite often go “No! Because then you’re just wasting more time, doing something you don’t want to be doing!”

Loy: Exactly.

Lisa: Chalk it all up to learning. Like you said, there are skills you will have learned and picked up along the way, that you’ll be able to use, but perhaps in an area where you really want to be working.

Loy: Exactly. Like backwards planning for a school year, for how you’re going to teach it, is exactly like backwards planning events!

Lisa: Because we talk about events, I want to ask you about a great event that you’ve attended, and what you liked about it.

Loy: Oh, gosh! I love going to music festivals. A few years ago, I was living in Oklahoma City, and went to this big music festival thing that was organized by Mumford and Sons, called Gentlemen of the Road. It was super cool. It was in Guthrie, Oklahoma, and they’ve shut down a lot of the town – not shut down, but taken over, I guess, a lot of the town. They had a bunch of different stages, and tons of fun stuff going on.

It was really hot, because it was an Oklahoma summer. But to me, thinking about it from an event perspective, too, just so much respect and appreciation for the level of detail that the Gentlemen of the Road series had to put together, was pretty awesome.

Lisa: That sounds great! I would have loved that.

Loy: It was fun.

Lisa: It was great chatting with you on the podcast today, Loy. It was lovely having you as a guest.

Loy: Thanks for having me!

Lisa: Until next time, this was Ticketbud Tidbits!