The Kelowna Beer Festival held on May 30 and 31, and billed as the 'first annual', went off like a bomb - in various senses of the word. It was a fairly small scale affair, with not a lot of breweries and nothing much that you couldn't pick up at the local well-stocked liquor store. (Unless you count 'the no. 1 export beer in China.') Still, a good enough showing to make it worth stopping by for a few.
The main flaw of the event was the venue - a curling rink, with no ice but lots of concrete. It was hot and stuffy and worst of all - the acoustics were horrendous, causing the sound to echo and bash around the room, making it very difficult to hold a conversation. And after all, beer festivals are nothing without conversation.
So hopefully a more suitable location can be found for next year, and the event can attract more homegrown brewery participants. It'll always be an uphill battle to convince breweries to show up so quickly on the heels of the highly successful Penticton Fest-of-Ale, especially at a time of year that tends to lend itself to being outside. Now there's an idea that could fly: an outdoor beer festival in the Okanagan.
(You can follow the link below for information on the festival, but be warned: it is a highly obnoxious flash site that hasn't been updated since well before the event happened.)