As parties go, the little get-together for the Friends of Lou campaign was a nice warm-up for Derby Week. A hundred or so people showed up at the Bourbon Country Tent at Fest-a-Ville, where the CVB’s Stacey Yates presided over the giving away of Maker’s Mark trinkets. That’s the official Just Add Bourbon T she’s wearing.

The Friends of Lou campaign passed out tschotkes at the gate, including a Pegasus Pin and one, count ‘em, one, drink ticket. HINT: if you’re going to invite an important blogger to a party, make it a little easier to get a beverage.

Actually, I’m guessing the DerbyFestival folks will tell you that making cash worthless inside Fest-a-Ville, insisting that guests acquire a stored-value card (with a bank sponsor, of course), results in more money being spent. But for a lot of folks (or just me)  it’s not worth the trouble of finding a place to buy the card, deciding how much you’re going to spend on overpriced food and drink, and then keeping track of your card. Calculating a way to spend exactly what’s on your card is a game I just don’t want to play.

But enough about my pet issues. The crowd was a mix of folks who responded to the campaign’s invitation, like the couple I met from Beechmont, and people who were there on semi-official business, like Phil Miller from the Mayor’s Office and Dan Burgess from Doe-Anderson.

The next Friend of Lou event, I hear, will be a Bats game at Slugger Field, where presumably there will be plenty of drink tickets for bloggers.