EVERETT, AUG. 22: You may have noticed an event missing from the calendar this month.
The 2024 Upper Left Beerfest & Food Truck Festival announced in August that it was canceling this year’s annual event.
This would have been the Beerfest’s fourth year back after the pandemic. The 2023 festival was successful with over 16 breweries and cideries, two dozen food trucks, and over 40 booths. So, what happened?
The organizer: Jared Loranger
Loranger took over what was known as the Everett Craft Beer Festival, about six years ago. He runs his own event planning company, Fizz Events, and manages roughly 25 events during the summer.
Loranger said that when planning this year’s Beerfest, the cancelation came down to breweries being unable to spare manpower, low ticket sales, and over-saturation of Beerfest’s in Washington State.
“It was hard to track down breweries, that was the main driver behind this. When I decided to cancel, we only had six breweries, as compared to 15 or 20,” Loranger said.
Many of the breweries were stepping back from festivals this year, Loranger said. Breweries have to decide between going to a festival and keeping doors open.
Crucible Brewing located on 909 SE Everett Mall Way was one of six who planned on being part of this year’s festival. Last year, they couldn’t participate due to not enough people to cover the brewery and the festival, co-owner Dick Mergens said.
Conflicting schedules contribute to the weening of numbers in brewery participation and ticket sales, Loranger said. Tacoma’s Beerfest, Brew 253, was the same weekend as Upper Left last year, and Loranger said he lost some breweries to them, and vice versa.
“Staying away from other beer festivals has become harder and harder because there are more that keep popping up all over,” Loranger said.
Over the years there has been an overall increase in beer festivals around Washington, Loranger said. Upper Left Beerfest was scheduled for the weekend of Aug. 16-17.
Local breweries continue to struggle
Last year, Washington’s largest beer festival, the Washington Summer Brewers Festival, was canceled after the previous year burned through its resources. In 2022, attendance was lower compared to the 25 years they have been running the event.
The Upper Left Beerfest had to postpone for two years during the COVID-19 pandemic, and last year managed to sell tickets close to pre-COVID numbers. However, many local breweries in the area are still struggling.

Crucible Brewing has been in Everett since 2015 and was operating pretty well for the first five years before the pandemic, Mergens said. Since then, Crucible has seen a steady decline.
“People are reducing their spending, and our costs are still going up,” Mergens said, “People are drinking less too, instead of three to four drinks people get one or zero.”
Crucible Brewing is a partner with Columbia Distributing, a local distributing company with a branch in Everett. Mergens said that only one brewery in partnership with Columbia didn’t shrink last year.
“The shutdown put everyone in a weakened position, both businesses and people,” Mergens said.
“See you in 2025, Everett!”
Postponing this year’s event was hard for Loranger, but he said it was the right decision.
“I don’t want to give somebody a product they don’t feel they get their money’s worth,” Loranger said.
Loranger hopes to make next year’s event even bigger, by bringing in more types of alcohol options, like wine and whiskey. “I want to bring in more of the craft industry, not just craft beer,” Loranger said.
Those who had purchased tickets to Upper Left Beerfest were refunded in full. Loranger said he just wanted to make sure everyone was taken care of.
“That’s the goal. It’s to continue to promote Everett and Snohomish County breweries scenes,” Loranger said.