Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory it ain’t.

After we grabbed our golden tickets, we were saddled up with our 16 oz. tasting glass (complete with 4 oz. marker so that the volunteers didn’t overpour) and 25 beer tokens. These precious round wooden pogs were our currency for the afternoon, and we could spend it any way our little hearts desired.

My accomplice and I gravitated toward the near end of the concourse. Our glasses clutched against our bodies, our first chip out. Before the great wall of libation followed us in, it was quick and easy to grab a beer. We simply walked up to the keg, exchanged our wood for barley and voila! A 25% full glass of sweet nectar we’d never tasted before.

For maximum efficiency of movement, we simply went down the line of vendors. Roughly 20-30 minutes in, that cha-cha down the pavilion screeched to a grinding halt. Who let all these people in?

The fundraiser was quite popular. Roughly 3,500 thirsty patrons nudged their way against other thirsty patrons, and the mess quickly became a considerable clusterf@#k. Imagine stuffing all those people into an area the size of a small supermarket. Lines merged and became unclear. Those moving in one direction bashed against those moving in another. A bottleneck between the imports and the local brews, made worse by a stairway that jutted out into the middle grew, and soon turned into those house parties you tried to avoid after freshmen year.

Problems arose when it became claustrophobic and grabbing a beer soon became a war of attrition and persistence. Would we be able to impose our will against others who may or may not be in line? Some of the more popular brews caused lines of roughly 5-10 minutes in length. There should have been an Alpha Delta with a keg of Natty Light at the end, and it would have been more apropos.

You could feel the frustration mounting from the wave of humanity, as BACs rose and loquaciousness became a non-issue. Beers were spilling, glasses were breaking and people were chanting. This was HSBC Arena, were we just leaving a sold-out Sabres game?

Time slowed to a crawl.

Incredibly, after we’d burned through our first 10 tokens like a live ciggarette buried under dead wood in a forest, we still had some 6-7 tokens left after two straight hours of being corralled to-and-fro. My accomplice and I, as satisfied as we were with the beer selection, came to a stunning realization: there’s no way we’d actually use all these tokens. Our money would be thoroughly wasted before we were. We’d be better off just giving away our tickets to beer heaven, cashing in our chips and calling it an afternoon.

The problem with said logic arose when we were offered by some 5-10 other ladies and gentlemen their tokens. “I can’t give these suckers away!” they shouted. Who could blame them? After tasting all the beers, and wading through a wave pool of people, still more opportunities for drinks remained - and yet they were not.

The festival was due to run until 6 p.m. It was 4:30. We’d had our fill. “Let’s wait in one more line, see if we can cash in all our chips, and get ourselves a full beer.” I explained to my counterpart.

“Yeah, man, good idea.”

I pegged the line I to which I wished to go forfeit my remaining tokens, the Ommegang Rare Vos queue. We’ve made no secret before that this is our favorite beer, and we were thrilled to death that it was on tap. As we edged up to the pourer, I disclosed by strategy.

“Miss, may I give you all the rest of my tokens in exchange for a full beer?”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“You can’t?”

“No, sir.”

“That’s alright. Here.” I dropped every last token (I believe there were 4) into the bucket and once again ensured her it was O.K.

To my extreme delight, she graciously obliged, and told me to scamper away and drink it quickly. There’d be no problems doing that.

Upon further review, there are a few things that - if blessed with some authority over the event and a time machine - I would change about the festival. Any number of these problems could be solved in a number of ways. Here they are.

1. If you’re planning on not capping the attendance, ensure that you have ample space to accommodate everyone. The event would have been best served by opening up the ring around the arena, with a different set of beers in front of every aisle. This gives everyone the opportunity to move in an orderly fashion in either direction, keep clusters from developing and allow for equally lengthed lines.

2. Cap the attendance. There was absolutely no way that 3,500 people were going to fit comfortably inside the concourse. Do your homework and estimate how many folks can fit safely in an area before letting every riff-raff into the area.

3. Lower the price of admission and offer fewer tokens. We understand that this is a fundraiser. The objective is to raise as much money as humanly possible. We totally get that. However, to make the event a pleasant and enjoyable experience for everyone, cutting the number of tokens and lowering the price does the following:

A. Tokens will not go to waste. This the overall utilitarian value of the festival.

B. Once folks run out of tokens, they will be more likely to leave, reducing the number of people within the confines.

To me, these seemed like simple proposals which I do hope the good organizers who were kind enough to put this together do take under consideration.

One last consideration.

Many people were under the impression that there would be “100 beers” to choose from at the festival. While that may have been true, many of these said beers were domestic beers in bottle form at the middle island. In order to receive one beer or another, you smash your way to the front of the line, where you could get a sneak peek at what the offerings were, then run to the rear to wait in line if you wished to purchase a taste.

Quite often, said beers were of the Labatt Blue Light variety. Thanks, but no thanks. We didn’t come here to spend what amounts to $4 a pint on a beer we can buy for $7.99 per 12-pack at the corner store. We’re suckers for mystery and intrigue.

This is not to knock the beerfest, which was overall enjoyable (as you will see in the final two chapters of this post) these are mere suggestions.

Next time we purchase the golden ticket, we hope to be amongst a more select club, or at least have Violet and Mike TV slightly farther away from us.

If I wanted to make love to queuemates, I would have asked them for their phone number first.

ALSO SEE: [Part 1 - The Guerilla Journalism Manifesto]