RARE Dos Equis Party @ Falkenstein Castle

There’s not more that I can add that hasn’t already been said. Horrible horrible experience. The only redeeming portion of the night was later finding money in a bathroom at a totally unrelated bar. I have never been to an event that was virally marketed and then heinously disorganized. Left hand was certainly not communicating with the right. After being directed by the local law enforcement to park in a field 2 miles from the castle, we stood in a line in said poo-​laden field, (and lucky not poo-​laden by humans as the event organizers didn’ t think to provide port-​a-​potties) and waited for buses to take us to the castle. My friends and I finally got on a bus that upon arrival was turned away by same law enforcement because event was at capacity. Dos Equis should reimburse everyone’s gasoline expenses, and make a Most Interesting Apology Commercial to air for the Austin market at the least.

I think we all knew beforehand that this was going to be one gigantic catastrophe but we went anyways. We got there a little after 8PM at the «side entrance» where hundreds of us Austinites stood around like clueless sheep trying to figure out what the heck was going on. We’d dance between admitting defeat and heading back to the car then quickly run back to the entrance if we caught wind of any potential good news. Of course everyone was in the dark as to what was going on. There were no representatives at this entrance. Finally the cops got jerky and told everyone to leave. We were lucky in that we didn’t park a few miles away and wait 45 minutes for a shuttle that would eventually drop us right back to our car like some people. We also didn’t rent the van that we talked about renting. We did enjoy a nice co-​worker bonding experience in the four hours of our lives that we wasted.

«Destroying all hope in humanity?»
C’mon people.
Y’all live in Austin. Have any of you ever tried to go to that really popular SXSW party? You know, the Fader /​Rachel Ray /​Perez Hilton one that you RSVP’d for online only to find a ridiculous line that prohibits you from getting in? It’s the same thing.
Or what about the Chronicle’s hot sauce festival, where you stand in line for two hours on an August afternoon only to be told that they’re out of chips?
You can rage against the injustice and the poor event planning and the destruction of all hope in humanity. Or you can get there earlier next time, and STFU.
I have sympathy for the annoyance that many of you felt. I can imagine how frustrating it must be to spend hours in traffic, in lines or in cow patties (or some combo) just to be denied.
But hundreds and hundreds of people got in line before you, and we all waited in line in the hot sun because we knew it’d be packed and we’ve been turned away from too many sxsw free parties in the past.
PS — it was really fun inside, I’m sorry you didn’t get in.

We had a great time, but I can only credit the military precision of our attending group’s leader, who demanded we leave on our own by 5:00, to much moaning and whining. It was also clearly evident to us by around 9:00 that we were extremely lucky on several fronts. We arrived early enough to catch the second shuttle to the party from the parking lot, and entered the party to minimal lines at the food and beer stands. We also managed to get a table by the henna tent, near to a less-​populated bartender (Although, she was still really, really busy and had to wait to be restocked several times. She was a patient, calm marvel.)
Going to bed last night, I would have given this five stars and called it one of the best nights I’ve ever had, but reading about the chaos and mismanagement that was happening to the people outside, I’m docking a star. I lay the blame on Mirrorball for not handling the guest list situation, the shuttles, the law enforcement… essentially, it looks like a far-​removed company did NOT know the area they were planning. To a lesser degree, RARE gets some flak for not cutting their guest list down to a manageable level, like Do512 and Facebook did.
I hesitated posting a positive review, but I haven’t read one single review on Twitter, Facebook, or elsewhere saying it was anything but a disaster. I had an incredible time (not perfect, but at a hot, crowded free party, you make concessions). That said, I have very deep sympathy for those of you who got screwed. Heat, lack of facilities and water, lines, angry law enforcement… If it had been me, I would have been vitriolic and might have considered it a summer-​ruining moment.
Go to the Independence Brewery first Saturday in August and getcha some free beer at their open house. It’s hot as hell and a little crowded there, but you won’t have to eat bugs.

Boo.
I’ll repost a snippet from my RARE review here.
— — — —
Now, I’ve planned events for a while now. My last one was more popular and gained more than 1500 people. Needless to say, we were glad the fire marshall didn’t show up. However, once the owner of the club realized there was a huge line outside, he used his smarts to say «get those people off the street and into the club!»
You had a party with more crazy stuff than I could ever have afforded, and your capacity was 2000 people? Oh, and you never really conveyed that capacity? And didn’t tell the cops that people were driving out there? And, likely, had not thought of the fact that your «parking lot (s)» were miles away and would need some kind of «regular» shuttle service?
Wow. Just wow. I mean, if I’d fucked up like that and pissed off that many people… I’d feel really crappy.
Not as crappy as you, of course, because I certainly wouldn’t have made those mistakes and included an 1.5 HOUR DRIVE to give people more time to be pissed off at you.
— — — -
HOWEVER, I think the people to blame here are Dos XX, and Mirrorball out of NYC.
Why oh why did they get a company out of NYC to plan a party in the TX hill country? Well, that’s cause they’re stupid.
And, if you wanna go to Mirrorball’s site and tell them they’re stupid, please be my guest.

I understand that Rare was not responsible for the production of this massive failure.
What I also understand is that Rare had an RSVP list of 3,600 names, which is just plain irresponsible. Coupled with the 1,800 legit RSVPs from Do512, that’s 5,400 people who were «guaranteed» to get into a party that capped at 2,000. Do the math.

5 friends taking the afternoon off of work for event= $ 600 (in lost wages)
Rent a car because event said it might be better to drive $ 85
Gas for 180 mile round trip $ 42
Parking two miles away w/​900 other people before the 1^st bus even arrives at the castle, following the rules and not trying to find an alternate route in, having no restroom facilities for 4 hours or water, being told by hired security could not leave parking lot, having 2 friends under 21 who arrived an hour after me and parking next to gates let into the event: PRICELESS

Utter and complete failure. If I could assign zero stars, or even negative stars, I would.
By now, everyone knows the story — planning the event in a «castle» that is an hour and a half away, allowing too many people to RSVP, telling people to drive themselves if they wanted and «there would be plenty of parking!» to only drive all the way out there to park in a lot miles away from the actual event. Waiting for almost 2 hours in a line to get shuttled into the event to only get denied at the gates. Destroying all hope in humanity. Ok, maybe that one’s a little over the top, but I’m keeping it.
Why send out directions to your RSVP’ers if those that follow them won’t even get into the event, and those that blatantly don’t listen to said directions, cops, planners, etc are able to just walk in? Why even have an RSVP list if you’re not checking names? Why not tell people that when they say «parking», they actually mean «a field full of cow patties that you will have to wait in a 2 hour line in for a shuttle, with no guaranteed entrance»?? Then, if people still chose to put themselves through that hell, they did it with a clear understanding of ‘no guarantees’. Why… why… why… I could go on forever.
Whoever was responsible for that disaster owes me $ 20 in gas and 8 hours of dignity. The dignity portion we can arrange in the form of waterboarding. Unilocal me for the address.
Oh, I will officially be calling the beer «Dos Suckies» now and forever more.
Me: «I’ll have a Dos Suckies, please»
Bartender: «Huh?»
Me: «One DOS SUCKIES please!»
Bartender: «Do you mean Dos Equis?»
Me: «Exactly. Actually, I’ll take a Corona instead.»

The most interesting part of the night was scraping cow poo off my shoes. Oh and our blood oath never to drink dos equis again. I now stand by two potentially uninteresting, but well organized and off my sh*t list, mexican beers named Corona & Modelo. And Firemans. And Miller Lite. And Chelada. And Amstel. And. um, I might have a problem.
(I figure I can post an event for reviews since we’ve done similar with Unilocal events in the past. Also, although I stand by my 1 star rating for RARE, they probably dont deserve all of the blame)
**Tecate owned by same company as XX**

I consider myself to be a generally calm, relaxed and patient person when it comes to large crowd events. It’s in the nature of these events to wait in long lines when events are free, involve a lot of people and mass transportation. So I’m not complaining because there was a general wait. I expected and prepared to have to wait because I could not get to the park until 5 p.m. due to work.
What I didn’t expect was the complete and utter failure of this event as the details unfolded. I was in the crowd of people who waited patiently in the sun for a bus. I left with my crowd from Waterloo park at around 6:45 p.m. when they made the announcement that the next bus would not arrive until 7:30 p.m. or 7:45 p.m. That was after standing in the line for over an hour and a half.
So we took it in stride and decide to drive to the venue instead. After some fun adventures, we get there and are turned away because too many people were there. So I didn’t have the «pleasure» of standing out in the cow pasture the wait in line for the castle. I didn’t even get that far.
I am highly disappointed with the poor planning and lack of organization of this event. Communication for it was sketchy from the beginning, so that should have been enough indication for me to stay my a$$ at home and enjoy my air conditioning. I’ll know to trust my instincts in the future. I’ll also know to support the dos equis boycott because there are plenty of other beer choices in Austin. I should support local breweries anyway.
I will say this though — I am more interesting as a result of this event… and more bitter.