Bud Light’s Whatever Town Pisses Off Real Town

Budweiser’s “Whatever Town” has Crested Butte, Colorado residents pretty pissed off. The Bud Light contest from Super Bowl was created to fly 1000 people into an “unknown location,” leaked early last week as Crested Butte, CO, for a weekend of partying with big name entertainment and other events.

Budweiser only initially offered Crested Butte a $250 000 permit fee, then came back after secret closed door negotiations with town officials with $500,000. For a huge name like Budweiser, that still seems like pocket change to come and take over an entire town for a weekend and inconveniencing the residents. Many residents have taken to Twitter, even writing to the Denver Post to complain about the deal.

Pros:

• Good thing for the town as the revenue is needed at this time of year as the summer tourism is winding down.
• Will bring in a lot of money for the town’s businesses

Cons:

• Residents upset that they were not given a voice in the process/decision
• Worried if this campaign does not work out that they could been seen as an embarrassment and could tarnish “family vacation spot” reputation
• Some residents feel $500k wasn’t enough from the billion dollar company
• Blocking off essential utilities/facilities without informing residents.

 

It seems the resident’s biggest beef is that that the town officials were so enticed by the cash from the mega brewery that they overlooked the residents input. On top of that, residents are being denied access to some public parks, streets and even utilities (park bathrooms for instance) for the brewery’s 1,000 party goers. The Budweiser event runs  September 5-7.

Budweiser touts this is the first time a brewery has ever taken over a town.