The EDA held TAP2022 on September 10 at the Lewis Street Parking lot in downtown.

There was a pre-event dinner held on the Holmes Street Bridge that was attended by more than 60 people including brewery representatives, members of the Shakopee Entrepreneur group and local community and corporate representatives.  The dinner was a great opportunity for entrepreneurs to meet community leaders and also mix with brewers who are also a large entrepreneur group.  

The TAP event was attended by 712 people.  There were 44 breweries in attendance from throughout the state of Minnesota.  The crowd has a great opportunity to meet with the actual brew masters and discuss how their beers were made.  Rahr, for the first time in its history, participated in the event as its original 175 year old business, Eagle Brewery.  

The breweries in attendance were from throughout the state and were both large and small craft breweries.  Overall, breweries were very pleased, especially since this was a first year event.  Lessons learned included providing more ice and switching from an app based rating system to something simpler like wooden coins.  

Most of the attendees were from outside of Shakopee and were impressed with downtown.  Most had never been to an event in Shakopee.  The crowd was older than most brewery tasting events and almost sixty percent female. Also, a number of people attended the event from out of state, with Chicago being the largest out of state group.  This was largely because the Chamber was able to get the event listed with the State of Minnesota Tourism site which attracted a large out of state audience.

Breweries and attendees thought the event was different since it focused on Minnesota craft breweries and featured many that had never been in this market.  Many of the breweries created special beverages for the event, including Rahr that featured a beer that had been aged for 175 days.

The event was from Noon until 4PM.  Retailers downtown experienced increased traffic and restaurants including Mana, Mallards, O'Brien's and Turtles experienced dinner business much earlier than on any normal Saturday.

Next year it was suggested that Rahr might offer an exclusive tour to brewers the day before.  Attendees at the dinner enjoyed the diversity in business people from Amazon to St. Francis Hospital mixed in with breweries and entrepreneurs. The Chamber and city Parks and Recreation staff are also exploring how they can wrap additional events around TAP since it already has an established base.  Ideas being explored include an early morning bike race and an evening free headline concert in Huber Park.

The original concept budget was $45,000 from the Shakopee Public Utilities support from its economic develop contribution. We are still waiting on some final bills but we are projecting final expenses at $47617 and revenue from ticket sales, net of fees and taxes was $29,148.80, which does not include a donation of materials from Lowes.  The final cost to the EDA Shakopee Utility Fund was approximately $19,000.

Shakopee Public Utilities was very pleased with the result, especially with attracting people from outside of Shakopee. They also received substantial publicity from the event.

Staff will provide some demographic profiles and video from the event at the meeting.