Downtown Long Beach Beer & Wine Festival

First time attending this festival and I personally am a fan!
~$ 38 for unlimited wine and beer plus samples of food (10 tickets). Located in the Promenade between 1^st and 3^rd street in Long Beach — a great location for something like this. I highly suggest taking an über or the yellowcab promo to the party if you live close by. My friends and I arrived around 6:15PM and it was easy check in and then grab your little 6 oz glass to sample all the drinks!
All the vendors were local restaurants or local southern California wineries and breweries. Food vendors were SO local you can see their businesses from the festival.
The venue was split into two sides. The north side lines here were really long, but went quickly. Some booths ran out of food before the first hour ended and was waiting for refills. let’s just say that some attendees were particularly rude to these people and yelling. Why not just get out of line and go into another line? There were PLENTY of vendors! Since we had a group of four, two of us would stand in food lines while the other two would stand in alcohol lines. A perfect system!
On the South side, the lines were much shorter and it felt cooler because of the grass. Beer samples were usually the full glass while wine samples were only a third to a half of the glass. Favorites included Noble Ale works and their Naughty Sauce and the sparkling wine from the booth next to the peach cobbler…
We easily got 10+ samples of alcohol this evening.
Foods I was able to try: fried oysters, cajun shrimp, empenadas, biscuits and gravy, peach cobbler, braised beef, brussel sprouts, honey walnut shrimp (plus other goodies from the same booth), and maybe a few more items I cannot remember. 10 tickets per person is more than enough! Some booths charged only 1 ticket while other booths charged more. (most bang for your buck was the empenadas which were 2 tickets and the fried oysters which were only 1 for 3!)
Biggest gripes: Not enough trash cans, the event says 10PM on the event website AND tickets but ended promptly at 9PM, and I feel like some vendors were not prepared for the oversold tickets!
Will definitely think about coming back next year! A fun event with friends.

Absolutely the WORST beer festival I have ever attended. The 2015 event was oversold by at least double, if not triple. It was stupid crowded, and all the lines were ridiculously long. Just to move around you always needed to cut through existing lines. There was a 20 minute minimum wait in many of the lines. I had all of 6 beer samples the entire event due to the lines.
It is pretty sad that this event deteriorated into greed. I have attended all three years of the festival … the first year was great, 2014 was pretty good but still too crowded, and 2015 was just terrible. My entire group all said we would not ever return.
Every single trash can was overflowing within the first hour. There was no available water except for one food vendor that offered bottled water for one ticket. They also stop the alcohol service an hour early, so 3 hours to get your «unlimited» samples. Many food vendors ran out of food well before 9, and many beer vendors ran out of beer.
For parking, the city garages that normally offer two hours free and then take credit cards on exit all jacked up their prices and only took cash to get in. I had to drive around 20 minutes to find a lot where I could park and pay with a credit card. More greed.
I am not surprised Long Beach would completely ruin an event that started off with so much promise two years ago, but greed always takes over. Never again.

I went to this event last year and had a great time. This year the event was horrible. First and most importantly the event is listed as going from 6 – 10. When we arrived we saw signs posted that said alcohol service ended at 9. What this meant was that the people started breaking down the booths around 8:45. I saw a woman serving wine that stopped at around 8:30. She had bottles sitting there but refused service and started to pack up immediately at 9.
I visited both sides and ended up leaving at 9 since there was nothing to drink. We still had food tickets because no one should eat that much junk food. For an event to cut off 25% of their drinking time and not put that anywhere in the marketing is a rip off on the verge of fraud. I left an hour early with a bloated stomach and little to no buzz.
Last year the vendors seemed to better understand what type of crown they were dealing with. They poured a respectable amount and everyone seemed to have a good time. This year the experience was vastly different. Several of the vendors were pouring a «taste» of wine. I understand they don’t have to, and probably should not, pour full glasses. The problem is when you stand in a 10 minute line and get to the front and the person is trying to sell you bottles and then gets mad at you for simply wanting a drink and to be allowed to walk away. several of the vendors were doing this. When you reached the front of the line you were given a speech and told all about how to purchase the drinks before they would pour. I already paid to get in I don’t want an advertisement before each pour as well.
Another problem was parking. Near the event their are 3 garages that on any other day give 2 hours free parking. During this event 2 of the 3, the closest 2, charged 8 dollars to park. We parked in the walmart parking garage and did not pay but last year this was not done.
In all it was a disappointment mostly because of how much fun I had last year. I looked forward to this event and bought my ticket the day they went up. I will not be buying tickets next year regardless of any changes they make and I encourage anyone interested to go elsewhere. Cutting down the time with no notice before buying tickets was a cheap and dirty move to save money and push people out the door early. It worked. By 9 most people had left and it was boring.

Presale tickets are advertised as $ 30 yet after tax and fee come out to $ 36.58. Hardly what I would call a discount off the at the door price of $ 40.
The line to enter was not too long. We got there at 6:10pm and the event started at 6pm. There are two sides of the event — north and south. I went to both but it seemed that more people enjoyed the south side. Lines were atrociously long, averaging about 5 minutes for each food vendor, about 10 minutes for each beer vendor, and maybe 3 minutes for wine vendors.
I personally think they oversold the event this year and I am hoping for improvement next year.
I saw only one booth that offered water, for sale via tickets. the ticket system was interesting. Some vendors took the system as every item costs 1 ticket, whereas some vendors sold items for 3 tickets. When you only get 10 tickets for food, that’s a lot of tickets for one item to sample.
I think the beer and wine selections/​vendors were great, no complaints there. But I do think there needs to be a ton of improvement on wait times and amount of people. The lines got so long… my group ended up leaving before the event was over.
Also, though the event was advertised to be 6pm-​10pm, all alcohol service stops at 9p.

Great event. The 30 bucks for unlimited alcohol tastings and 10 food tastings can’t be beat. And most of he food tasting were a good size portion. Only bad things: not many trash cans, and not much water available. Definitely coming back in the future

Would give it zero stars if I could. Food vendors ran out of food within an hour, lines are atrocious, should have spent the money on a decent dinner and drinks.

This review is on the 2^nd Long Beach Beer & Wine Festival. I also attended the 1^st annual (and wanted to attend the 3^rd but will be out of town)…
Like the 1^st LBBWF,
(I know — sounds like a dating site acronym for a lesbian big-​boned white female), this one was full of super-​friendly vendors passing out yummy food and strong tasty beverages with a smile.
Like the 1^st LBBWF,
(I know — looks like something a teenager would text to you as she was driving), this one had great bands (shout out to the band covering Tonight You Belong to Me, aka the love song from the Jerk).
And like the 1^st LBBWF,
(I know– sounds like a German bank or defunct wrestling league) this one had plenty of security, trash cans, event staff and porti-​potty.
Bonus: loved the instant photo booth that instantly provided digital networking and physical prints.
Unlike the 1^st LBBWF,
(I know — sounds like a fart through a tight wet chamois)
this one was SOLD OUT and at maximum capacity, so it was in great need of line management. It was hard to tell where lines ended. It was hard to tell if someone was in line or just chilling on the same axis. Lines unintentionally forked, or spilled into the well-​intentioned but horribly placed cornhole game. Lines bled together like teenage twin sisters on their cycle.
That said, we love La Beeby Woof.
(LBBWF)