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Witness Bud Light Turn Crested Butte Into Blue Fantasy Town

By Megan Barber

After two weeks of drama over whether or not Crested Butte should be painted blue (and paid $500,000) as part of Bud Light's "Are You Up for Whatever" ad campaign, the weekend-long party is officially over. Early reports conclude that the event went smoothly until the end. Apparently trying to get thousands of people on planes out of a tiny town isn't the easiest, especially when the Bud Light partiers tried to fly with Colorado pot. Curbed Ski watched the beer company take over the town last Friday, but now that 1,000 partiers are nursing a massive headache this morning, let's see what went down over the weekend.

Once word was out that Crested Butte, Colorado was the Bud Light fantasy town, revelers bombarded Denver's Craigslist with offers to sell their Whatever wrist bands. The cost? Anywhere from $250 to a crazy $11,000. No word on if people actually bought the wristbands. After they arrived, partiers encountered a surreal, blue-painted fantasy world complete with a ferris wheel, beach, hot tubs, and anything else you can imagine. Let's take a tour, shall we?

First, Vanilla Ice served tiny vanilla ice cream cones:



Prancercise happened. And there was a mini horse.



Drones delivered beer, because that's normal:



Yoga came with a mustached instructor and a flutist:



You don't usually see a huge ferris wheel in a ski town:

This is what it looks like when Bud Light feeds 1,000 people on Main Street:

There were things like this:



And a lot of concerts like this:

And when it was all over, Crested Butte looked like this:

But on Sunday, when the party was over, it was really hard for the Bud Light partiers to get on this:

Why? Because security snafus meant lengthy delays, missed connections, and one big social media mess. People who loved #WhateverUSA when they were drinking at 2:00 am complained on Twitter when their Sunday travel plans fell apart. The Denver Post reported that delays began with security screening as people tried to board flights. Rumors have it that after security agents found Colorado pot in people's luggage, they had to hand search the remaining passengers and luggage. Keeping it classy, people.

· Attendees stranded in Colorado after Budweiser's Whatever USA event [Denver Post]
· See Bud Light Taking Over Crested Butte Right This Second [Curbed Ski]
· Should Bud Light Turn Crested Butte Into Its Blue Bro Beerfest? [Curbed Ski]
· From Telluride to Winter Park: Average Rent in 17 Ski Towns [Curbed Ski]
· Why the Death of the Ski Bum Will Ruin Ski Towns Everywhere [Curbed Ski]

Crested Butte, CO