Notice Regarding Refunds for Maryland Craft Beer Festival

We often talk about the mission of the Brewers Association of Maryland and the impact our work has on the state of Maryland’s craft beer industry. We’re honored to represent the many industrious and entrepreneurial men and women who enrich our state’s communities through beer.

Revenues from our annual events make up an enormous portion of BAM’s operational budget–the Maryland Craft Beer Festival is BAM’s largest annual fundraiser. We rely on the success of these events to continue our work on behalf of Maryland’s breweries.

Starting with the Early Bird on-sale for the 2020 Maryland Craft Beer Festival, we were aware of concerns with our contracted ticketing vendor, MissionTix. Following several hours of troubleshooting and support, BAM and its board were satisfied that sales of passes to the Maryland Craft Beer Festival were underway.

On Saturday, March 21, 2020, in the wake of the state’s response to COVID-19, the Brewers Association of Maryland made the unprecedented decision to announce the cancellation of this event. All event attendees were emailed by our association with an update to the event status and provided an expectation that refunds from MissionTix would be processed in 5 to 7 business days. This statement was shared with MissionTix and we received no feedback that indicated there would be a delay in issuing proper refunds to pass holders.

After following up with MissionTix about the status of refunds, BAM sent another communication to all pass holders on March 31, 2020, indicating that MissionTix uncovered refund processing impediments. We were assured that, despite these delays, Maryland Craft Beer Festival pass holders and BAM were a priority for the team at MissionTix. On April 15, 2020, we distributed an additional followup email indicating that the vendor’s refund process was still limited and again offered guidance from MissionTix to contact them with concerns. Today, we learned that MissionTix has only refunded about 15% of the total Maryland Craft Beer Festival passes.

On behalf of the board, our brewery members, our affiliate members, our event partners, and our other event vendors, the Brewers Association of Maryland would like to formally apologize to you for the inconvenience posed by the entire process of obtaining refunds from MissionTix. We’re sorry.

While we understand that MissionTix is simultaneously managing refunds for hundreds of events, we urge them to make every effort to refund the face value of patrons’ tickets prior to Saturday, May 09, 2020 – the originally scheduled date of the Maryland Craft Beer Festival.

Customers can reach MissionTix directly via help@missiontix.com.