I left somewhat early, so part of what I'll add is my understanding of how things went overall, with the caveat that somebody who stayed for the whole thing may be able to fill in the details more satisfactorily.
So the event, which was a 4th anniversary party, was relying as its main draw, on the fact that they'd be selling a new one-off release they wouldn't be bottling, called Nuclear No Rules. Basically No Rules that spent extra time in the barrel, and had an ABV of 20% instead of the regular 15%. As you might imagine, it was the promise of this beer that enticed many people to buy a ticket, as otherwise there was nothing special enough to draw people out to Perrin who wouldn't otherwise show up on a Saturday. I guess technically they also debuted Unfinished Business (which has its own labeling issues - what the hell is single malt bourbon?), but since every retailer in the area was taking pre-orders with no limits, case discounts, and lower prices than Perrin, I'd still say that Nuclear No Rules was the only reason many of us went.
You had to either buy a ticket in advance, for $8.38 online, or for $10 onsite. This included literally nothing. As soon as you entered, they told you to take a raffle ticket, not explaining its significance. Then you were directed to a beer tickets line, where you had to pay $1 per ticket to buy beers whose pour cost and size varied, and which wasn't particularly easy to see from line, making it hard to know how many to buy. In my experience, the pours were overpriced for the high ABV stuff, but that isn't a big deal.
What is a big deal is the handling of Nuclear No Rules. In advance of the event, no information was provided save that it would be available. So one might reasonably assume that it would be available at the start of the event (3 Pm for mug club members, 4 PM for other ticket holders), or at least soon thereafter. I learned that it wouldn't be available until 9 PM (though I'm now hearing it was poured at 8 PM). Now, like many people, I made plans around going there for 4 PM, and not staying for 5-6 hours to try one beer, because they provided no information to suggest it was necessary to plan that way. So I spent the tickets I bought and left. From what I gather from those who stayed, the aforementioned raffle tickets were used to determine which of people in attendance had won the right to purchase a pour. A 3 oz pour for $8, and one which required and extra round or two of exchanging tickets, just to make it extra inconvenient.
So basically, the event was sold on the back of Nuclear No Rules, which they purposely didn't tap until 5-6 hours after the event start time to force people to stick around and overpay for a beer list not especially different from what the taproom normally offers, with the caveat that even those who stuck around could easily be screwed out of buying an extremely small and badly overpriced pour.
TL;DR - **** Perrin
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