Workers install a Welcome to Whatever, USA sign across Elk Avenue, in Crested Butte, Colo. Anheuser-Busch agreed to pay $500,000 to convert the town into a set for a Bud Light commercial, a sequel to the company s “Up for Whatever Super Bowl ad that included Arnold Schwarzenegger. (P. Solomon Banda, AP)
By Nancy Lofholm
The party of parties got underway in Crested Butte Friday with free Bud Light flowing freely, a giant blue gorilla looming over blue Elk Avenue and beer-logoed buses dropping off loads of already imbibing partiers at the gates of Whatever USA.
Excitement over a beer conglomerate taking over an out-of-the-way ski town and turning it into a mythical-town stage set for the weekend grew to fever pitch in the past several days. It built as more and oversized blue props went up and the likes of reality star Honey BooBoo and rapper Jay Z were spotted. Rapper Lil John kicked off a weekend of performances in the mountain town. Jay Z is rumored to perform on Friday night,
But anger grew along with the hoopla.
Some residents, who didn’t like their town officials’ approval of this event for a half-million-dollar payment, had their anger compounded when the town ran out of the wristbands that would allow locals to access their disguised downtown. There was no shortage of bands for the more than 1,000 Bud Light fans being flown in to be “citizens” of Whatever USA.
On a Facebook page devoted to discussions of Whatever, talk turned to calls for revolt Friday. Some called for tearing down Bud Light fences and recalling town council members.
“We’re not an amusement park with a citizenry to be divided into classes to suit Bud Light’s marketing goals while OUR government is bought off. We’re a REAL town,” wrote one disgruntled resident.
A highway sign Friday warned those driving into Crested Butte, “No wrist bands left.” But the town was passing out paper permission slips Friday to those who work in the party zone but didn’t have a band.
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