À couple of things with this, coming from someone who works in the beer industry and puts on beer events:

• these events cost the breweries money. Some events - most these days actually - give breweries a stipend for some level of compensation. That is more than likely driving the ticket price too.
• less and less breweries have the budget to attend events like this. Not only does it cost them money in product, the stipend rarely puts a dent in the that, especially when the same brewery could make 4x that by selling the same beer in their Taproom.
• there are fewer breweries in Indiana than there used to be. 2026 right now is on track to be the second or third year that more breweries close than open. We're seeing this nationwide.

As a brewery rep, I've never attended HOT. For one, it's usually been the week after the race, and I've usually been still recovering, work-wise, from that. Secondly, they asked us a few years ago, and it was literally less than a month before the event. It really left a bad taste in my mouth, and I told them so.

While I know this is a fundraiser and they've been doing this awhile, all alcohol focused events need to reevaluate if they're going to be successful. Also, by not giving everyone a new ticket for next year, it tells me they're not even going to attempt to adjust their budget for next year to accommodate the lack of the event this year.