It was billed as a “love letter to Portland,” a chance for a classic beer brand to give back to the city that lent some hipster cred to its red, white and blue cans, reversing decades of decline.
But when the first Project Pabst proved a hit in 2014, the summer music festival began to grow, adding spin-off events across America. By 2017, festivals were taking place in four American cities, and Project Pabst had begun taking a fair share of the multi-million dollar company’s marketing resources.
“It takes a lot to throw one festival,” said marketing director Rachel Keeton. “Throwing four means it’s kind of your only thing.”
This summer, Project Pabst will return for a two-day festival at Tom McCall Waterfront Park, this time working with local concert promoter TrueWest. With relatively inexpensive PBR tallboys, a freshly built version of its signature 25-foot silver unicorn and dozens of touring indie rock and hip hop acts, the revived festival marks a potential “We’re so back” moment for Portland.
The event, which takes place on July 27 and 28 across two stages built along the Willamette River, will include performances by Project Pabst’s usual mix of nostalgia acts and more current hip hop and indie rock bands, which this year include Billy Idol, Big Thief, T-Pain, Violent Femmes and Gossip (see below for the complete Project Pabst 2024 lineup). Presale tickets are available now.
HOW PROJECT PABST CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD
After launching at Zidell Yards in South Portland, Project Pabst moved to Tom McCall Waterfront Park in 2016, then held its last event in 2017. Considering the end came years before the pandemic, its return makes you wonder why it stopped in the first place.
“It’s a bit of a high wire act — there’s booking, weather, and I’m not a music promoter by trade,” said Matt Slessler, who helped spearhead Project Pabst’s initial run. “After four years, we begrudgingly said, ‘It’s so much work. Let’s go out on a high note. You would rather get out of the party a little too quick than stay too long.’”
Rather than roll that boulder up the hill for another year, Pabst called it quits after 2017′s multi-city festivals. That should have been the end. But during its seven-year absence, some outsiders — PBR fans, bar owners, a powerhouse distributor — kept the candle burning for Project Pabst. Soon, interest in reviving the festival was growing within the company itself.
“We have a lot of new people at Pabst,” said Slessler, now a company Vice President. “They would see these photos and posters and say, ‘Wait a minute, we used to put on a festival with Beck and Iggy Pop and Duran Duran and Ice Cube, and we’re not doing that anymore? Are we crazy?’”
One of those new faces was Keeton, who joined the company in 2018 and became Pabst’s marketing director in 2020. Internally, some of the same conversations were happening that had launched the original festival back in 2014. For a beer company that sponsors so many festivals, why not throw one themselves, featuring Pabst beer and artists they love?
“Pabst Blue Ribbon is well connected to music, and we get a million sponsorship decks for every festival under the sun,” Keeton said. “It was kind of a joke on the team, ‘Why aren’t we just throwing Project Pabst again?’”
A conversation with Columbia Distributing, Pabst Blue Ribbon’s distributor in the Pacific Northwest, helped turn that inside joke into a reality.
“They were super supportive of Project Pabst, saying it could have an impact not just in the market but more broadly,” Keeton said. “It was a big request from them coming into this year. And given that it’s the 180th anniversary of Pabst, that made it kind of special.”
Ryan Clough, Columbia’s Business Development Director, said the distributor first brought up the notion of reviving the music festival during a meeting with new Pabst CEO Paul Chibe, who was touring the Pacific Northwest with the company for the first time.
“Pabst had moved some of their marketing folks, moved their headquarters a couple of times — now it’s in San Antonio — and had lost a little bit of that ‘Portland is Pabst, Pabst is Portland’ feel along the way,” Clough said. “So how do we gain a little bit of that nebulous feeling back? How do we get Portland to fall back in love with Pabst?”
The Columbia team suggested doing “something like Project Pabst” again. They didn’t know Pabst was already thinking the same thing.
“A lot of us in that room had been to those events in the past,” Clough said. “Was it always financially viable? Well, there’s a reason it went away. But you’ve got to have fun in the beer business, and that resonates with consumers.”
WHY PROJECT PABST PICKED PORTLAND
When Pabst chose Portland for its first music festival back in 2014, the company called it a chance to give back to the city that played an essential role in the beer’s renaissance from dated grandpa tipple to essential hipster accessory.
“Portland was having a really nice moment,” Slessler said. “Everyone wanted to come to Portland, and Portland was ground zero for the resurgence of Pabst. We wanted to do a music festival our way, and give back to our No. 1 market in the United States.”
By 2016, the festival had expanded to four cities, with Project Pabsts landing in Denver, Atlanta and Philadelphia. The last Portland festival — with Beck, Iggy Pop, Nas and a then little-known Lizzo — was held in 2017.
Focusing on Portland makes sense. Back in the early 2000s, Pabst was approaching its 160th birthday and facing free-falling sales when reps noticed something odd: Despite almost no advertising, in a town better known for its craft scene, young bike messengers, music fans and other Portland hipsters were gravitating toward the inexpensive, Milwaukee-born beer at dive bars such as The Lutz and Ash Street Saloon. The unexpected embrace led to a spike in sales after decades of continous decline.
Still, Portland might not be the only city getting a Project Pabst. Reviving the festival in other host cities is something that is “on the table long-term,” Keeton said, but making it happen would “depend on our distributor partners.”
Slessler acknowledges that the festival is “a marketing play” for Pabst, but thinks the festival could bring some goodwill to the city nonetheless.
“I get to travel around the country, and people are always asking about Portland, but they only hear the bad stuff,” Slessler said. “They don’t know about how great the bars are, how great the restaurants are. I feel like this city could use some wins.”
SEE PROJECT PABST’S LINEUP FOR 2024
Saturday
- Billy Idol
- T-Pain
- Violent Femmes
- Gossip
- STRFKR
- Shannon & The Clams
- DEHD
- La Luz
- Home Front
- Alien Boy
Sunday
- Big Thief
- Denzel Curry
- Manchester Orchestra
- Jeff Rosenstock
- Soccer Mommy
- Militarie Gun
- Kenny Mason
- Miya Folick
- Sweeping Promises
- Glitterfox
Project Pabst will take place July 27-28 at Tom McCall Waterfront Park in downtown Portland. The event is 21+. Pre-sale tickets are available through this link using the code “UNICORN.”
— Michael Russell; mrussell@oregonian.com