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How Flipside Fun Kept Lagerpalooza 2023 Moving
Lagerpalooza isn't a small gathering. In its eighth year running, the free all-ages festival at Bohemian Brewery in Midvale drew a crowd ready for craft lager, live competitions, food trucks, and a full afternoon of community energy. When an event runs seven hours with that much happening, entertainment infrastructure isn't optional — it's what holds the whole thing together.
Flipside Fun was on-site for the full event, handling three distinct pieces of the day: DJ services, a giant bouncy slide for younger attendees, and all live announcements and MC support throughout the festival.
The Setup
Lagerpalooza runs noon to 7:00 p.m., which is a long stretch for any outdoor event. Keeping the energy consistent from the first pour to the final home brew awards ceremony takes more than just throwing on a playlist. It takes reading the room — or in this case, the lawn — and adjusting the music to match what's happening at any given moment.
That's what DJ Jason Lovato does. The set built energy through the afternoon without overpowering conversations or clashing with the natural rhythm of a festival crowd that's moving between brewery taps, food trucks, brewing demos, and cornhole. The goal at a community event like this is never to be the loudest thing in the room. It's to be the consistent presence that keeps the atmosphere alive without demanding attention.
That balance is harder than it sounds, and it's something that only comes from doing this kind of work across dozens of different event formats.
Something for the Whole Family
Lagerpalooza is all-ages, and that creates a specific kind of crowd dynamic. Adults are focused on the beer, the home brew competition, and the food. Kids need something to do or the adults can't fully enjoy themselves.
Flipside Fun brought in a giant adult-sized bouncy slide to handle exactly that. It gave younger attendees their own anchor point at the event — a place to burn energy and stay engaged while parents explored the lineup of eight local brewers including T.F. Brewing, Fisher Brewing Company, Grid City, Bewilder, Offset, Helper, Strap Tank, and Bohemian Brewery themselves.
Having a slide on-site isn't just about kids' entertainment. It's about giving families a reason to stay longer, which means more engagement across the board. When an all-ages event actually accounts for all ages, the crowd stays fuller and the energy stays higher throughout the day.
MC and Announcements
A festival with a home brew competition, awards ceremony, a 5K, live podcast, cornhole tournament, and multiple vendor segments needs a point of contact for crowd communication. Flipside Fun handled all live announcements throughout the day — coordinating timing cues, directing crowd attention, and supporting the awards ceremony at the end of the evening when the new "best in show" brew was crowned.
This is often the piece that gets underestimated in event planning. Sound and crowd communication aren't just technical logistics — they're what allow an event with a lot of moving parts to feel organized rather than chaotic. When the MC is clear, confident, and well-timed, guests don't notice it. When it goes wrong, everyone does.
The Lagerpalooza lineup was genuinely stacked. Beyond the beer, guests had access to food from Taco Daddy, Cobra Dogs, Black's Sliders, and Weller's German food truck, plus the highly anticipated beer-infused cupcakes from Sweet Vinyl Bakeshop. The live Taste Masters podcast was recording on-site. Solstice Malt's James Weed had a dedicated space for local barley malt education. Homebrew clubs were running live demos. Proceeds from the 2022 best in show beer went directly to Delete Blood Cancer.
That's a lot happening simultaneously. Keeping it coherent from an entertainment and communications standpoint is exactly where professional event support earns its value.
What This Kind of Event Requires
Community festivals and craft beer events sit in a specific category of entertainment work. They're not corporate events with tight run-of-show documents and A/V teams in earpieces. They're also not private events where the client controls the guest list and every detail is pre-planned.
They're public, they run long, they have diverse crowds, and they depend on vendors who know how to collaborate with organizers on the fly. Flipside Fun has worked enough of these to understand what's needed before being asked — knowing when to let the ambient crowd noise breathe, when to pick up energy, when an announcement needs to be made clearly versus when it can be folded into the set.
Lagerpalooza 2023 was a well-run event with a strong community foundation. Our job was to support that — not overshadow it.
Planning Your Next Community Event or Festival in Utah?
Flipside Fun works festivals, fundraisers, city events, and community gatherings across the Salt Lake Valley. If you're organizing something that needs DJ services, live MC support, entertainment for families, or all of the above, reach out and let's talk through what your event actually needs.
No packages. No assumptions. Just an honest conversation about what's going to make your event work.