Exactly How Much PBR Gets Crushed in Gainesville During Fest?

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Every October, Gainesville, Florida becomes so flooded with punks from all over the world that it’s somewhat easy to forget what the town looks like every other part of the year: a fairly unassuming college town, albeit one with a history rich in both punk and college football.

The Fest is an annual punk rock mecca organized by Tony Weinbender that just celebrated its 14th straight year this weekend. It’s changed a lot over the years, from being primarily known as the world’s largest collection of Dillinger Four tattoos, to being a two-city celebration of DIY, punk, and oddball culture. For example, at 2:00 PM on Sunday, you could see Pennsylvania emo act Reservoir at a pub, folk punk legends Defiance, Ohio on an outdoor stage, Richmond stalwarts Sundials at an event hall, lucha libre wrestling at a country bar, and more. For the convenience shops and liquor stores sprinkled throughout Gainesville, however, Fest necessitates some pretty radical adaption once a year, owing largely to the fact that punks love the shit out of PBR.

On one cab ride over the weekend, I was told that sometimes nearly 100,000 people can flood into town for a big football game—although Fest brings in just a fraction of that amount of people, Wes, a clerk at Downtown Convenience, said his store sells around four times the amount of Pabst Blue Ribbon during Fest than they do during a big game. “We got around a hundred cases on Thursday,” Cason, an employee at Pop-a-Top Downtown Bodega told me when I talked to him around 11 AM on Saturday. “We’ve already blown through a good chunk of that.”

At Gator Beverage, a liquor store directly next to the Holiday Inn where Fest-goers pick up their wristbands and rifle through records at the annual flea market, a clerk named Ben showed me all of the empty areas of the store and the beer cooler that had been stacked to the top with PBR 12-packs just a few days prior. “We carry around ten times the amount of PBR during Fest than we do any other year,” he said. “And we might run out before the end of Fest,” he added.

Wes, who’s worked throughout Gainesville for the past ten years at venues and pizza shops in addition to Downtown Convenience and is a self-described bluegrass fan (“I gotta admit, I really don’t like [the Fest music],” he said), told me that the local businesses have adapted to the crowd. “We’ve gotten better at getting your money,” he said. “Every business that I’ve worked for, it’s like, ‘OK, we had a rough experience, that rough experience taught us something, next year, we’ll do it a little bit better.’”

Five Star Pizza, for example, sets up a carry-out operation in a tent during Fest that usually part of their usual business. “Usually, carry-out is probably under ten percent of their business, and during Fest, it’s around 30 percent. If you’re not expecting that… it’ll kick your ass,” Wes said solemnly, with the gravity of someone who has been through a goddamn war.

Ben looked at the Fest in a much more positive light, owing largely to the fact that they’ve experienced it as an attendee: Ben, although he said he doesn’t “really like” the music, went to Fest 6 back in 2007 (“I got really sick on the first night couldn’t even make it to the second day,” he said with a laugh), and Cason, who’s worked for the past four years and was an attendee prior to that mentioned he was going to try to catch Modern Life is War on Saturday night. “If I can get out of here early enough,” he added.

Even if it can be a little annoying dealing with drunk people, the general consensus seemed to be that Fest is pretty good for the town and its local businesses. “[Gator Beverage] had our best day of the year on Friday, even against football season,” Ben said. And the people? Compared with the normal crowd—college students, which is a pretty low bar to clear—people at Fest are like angels. “I mean, I’ve been to Fest,” Ben said. “For the most part, everyone is really docile and friendly.” Keri, another employee at Pop-a-Top, agreed. “We’ve never really had any problems. It’s a good crowd of people,” she said.

“Drunkenness, nudity… the usual,” she shrugged. “Nothing crazy.”

Paul Blest is on Twitter - @pblest