ST. LOUIS – After the news of the last minute cancellation of LouFest, vendors and sponsors of the event are sharing statements.
Early Wednesday morning, Listen Live Entertainment announced the cancelation on Twitter. The tweet linked to a full written statement by Listen Live Entertainment, said LouFest's primary cause of cancelation was due to "several financial hurdles," including the loss of two of the event's top sponsors, as well as "scheduling and contact issues with major artists." They cited existing debt from previous LouFests as another cause.
Schlafly has released a statement after LouFest organizers announced the event is canceled.
Schlafly was one of the first craft breweries to support LouFest when it started years ago. They’re inviting all LouFest ticket holders to come in on Saturday and offering 10 percent off tasting tickets starting today at 10 a.m. through this weekend with the code ‘LOUFEST18’.
Schlafly’s full statement
We are extremely disappointed in the decision to cancel Loufest. Not only for our investment in the local music festival, but all of our additional local restaurants, makers and artists friends who lost a lot. Loufest should be a celebration of all things St. Louis, and we were the first craft brewery to support the event when it first began years ago. With craft beer invited back this year, we were still excited to be a part of it although we did have some concerns about the organization of the event.
We spent countless hours designing a special commemorative can exclusively for the festival. We did a special canning run of that beer just for the festival – not a small investment and something we don’t normally do. The Loufest can was only going to be available at the festival. It wasn’t just about using the Loufest name, we wanted to do something special for the attendees.
Even with our busy schedules of preparing for the 20th anniversary of our HOP in the City Festival next weekend, we still made time with our design, brewing and events team to be a part of Loufest. So now, we will now shift gears to focus our energy on our celebration of local beer, music and the St. Louis community at HOP. We will also have several tribute bands there so it’s a free concert for all. All guests are welcome, and there’s also a $35 tasting ticket option to enjoy unlimited samples of 40+ of our beers.
We’re inviting all Loufest ticket-holders to join us Saturday, September 15 at the Schlafly Tap Room. Doors open at 11 a.m. with the tasting from noon to 4 pm. We will be offering 10% off tasting tickets starting today at 10 a.m. through this weekend for Loufest ticket holders here with the code ‘LOUFEST18’. Loufest ticketholders can also pick up a free commemorative can by showing their ticket stub, wristband, or receipt at either one of our brewpub location starting on Friday at 5 p.m. While supplies last and limit of one per ticket-holding customer.
The St. Louis Brewers Guild released this statement,
We are devastated to learn news that LouFest Music Festival has been cancelled just days before the event. We loved supporting this event and were thrilled to be working with their team to help create a local beer focused footprint for the event this year with “BrewFest”. Our local breweries and restaurants have invested so much in terms of time, planning, sponsorship fees, brewing and packaging tons of beer, food ordering, promotion, and staffing and this is a huge blow. Please take a look at the lineups for both BrewFest and the Nosh Pit and go out of your way to show these folks some extra love if you can. Thank you for supporting our local beer and food scene.
Arch Apparel statement
Waking up in the middle of the night to this, sucks! As a small business we have invested a lot into this mentally, physically and financially. We are disappointed and frustrated 🤦🏻♂️ We are going to get together and rally with a plan on what to do with almost over 1000 products we had set aside for this event. So stay tuned guys! We appreciate everyone’s support, as a small business we run off the local love we get. We will have a game plan ready ASAP! LouFest Music Festival
Statement from Urban Chestnut
We were very disappointed to learn about the cancelation of LouFest. We made a significant investment in this year’s festival, and we hope LouFest ticket holders continue to support all of the great local breweries, restaurants and vendors who were taking part. Moving forward, our efforts are focused on Oktoberfest St. Louis - our largest music and beer festival of the year taking place Sept. 28 – 30. To that end, we are waving the vendor fees for any LouFest vendors who would like to participate in our event. The city works best when we support each other, and we look forward to celebrating together.
