Kona Brewers Festival coming to end after 30 years

The Kona Brewers Festival on Hawai‘i Island has been showcasing craft beer from around the nation for three decades, but this year’s event likely will be its last. 

“It’s been a great 30 years,” festival founder Cameron Healy said. 

The nonprofit Ke Kai Ala Foundation, which is chaired by Healy, has run the festival over the decades as a way to educate the public about craft beer and to bring the community together while raising money for other local nonprofits.

But 74-year-old Healy said the core group that has organized the festival “feels like it has served its time — and we don’t have a younger group to pass it on to.”

The final Kona Brewers Festival will take place on March 8 on the grounds of the King Kamehameha Kona Beach Resort.

Healy started the Kona Brewing Co. with his son in 1994. He founded the Ke Kai Ala Foundation a couple of years later to run the festival that celebrates the craft brews.

But the foundation also has had a mission to support Hawai’i Island’s youth, culture and environment. All the money raised each year through ticket sales goes back to local nonprofits, he said.

Manu Powers joined the foundation about six years ago. While she is sad to see the festival ending, she said the event requires a lot of energy.

But she holds out hope another group will take on the festival.

“We want it to continue,” Powers said. “We need someone to come in who has new energy and can navigate this new (post-COVID) world.”

Healy said that is his hope, too. But so far, that has not happened.

The Kona Brewers Festival is a collaborative event. A ticket holder gets 10 beer tasting tokens and unlimited food tastings from participating restaurants. Festival goers also are treated to live music and the iconic Trash Fashion Show where outfits are made from items that were thrown away.

Local nonprofits volunteer staff to help run the event.

“It takes a village to put it on,” Healy said.

While past festivals have highlighted brewers from across the United States, Healy said this year they are focused on Hawai‘i breweries.

Nearly every year, Healy said, tickets for the event would sell out within the first 24 hours. After the COVID-19 pandemic, however, it changed the way people felt about large gatherings and festivals.

“People aren’t lining up outside the Growler Shack (at Kona Brewing Co.) hours after the tickets have gone on sale,” Healy said.

In March 2020, the festival was canceled two days before the event in an effort to stem the spread of the COVID virus.

“It’s been a slog bringing it back from that,” Healy said. “Public events are happening again but people have a different relationship with them.”

Tickets for this year’s event have been on sale since January. There are 1,250 tickets sold and Healy said there are still plenty available. At $100 per ticket, the goal is to raise $85,000 for a handful of local nonprofits.

Throughout the years, Healy said, the event has raised about $1.6 million for community groups.

Click here to buy a ticket.