When Moët Hennessy USA agreed to sponsor the new kickoff event for the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, the spirits company wanted to be sure it could reach its target consumer: a late 20s- to 30-something club-goer.

That customer wasn’t likely to buy a $300 ticket for The Q, a revamped version of the champagne-soaked Bubble Q, featuring foodie icons Emeril Lagasse and Food Network’s Guy Fieri offering the best in barbecue.

The solution: Crank the party up a notch and create a late-night Q After Dark. Think of it as sandy version of a South Beach nightclub featuring D.J. Ruckus spinning the tunes and super premium cocktails. Offer a value-priced ticket at $100 that won’t break the bank and even some limited half-price tickets through a Living Social marketing promotion.

As the South Beach Wine & Food Festival enters its 11th year, reaching out to younger consumers with hip, lower-priced events remains one mission of the evolving line-up. Along with The Q After Dark comes the new late night Party Impossible with Food Network’s Robert Irvine at the 1111 Lincoln Road garage. Yet another new event, Trucks on the Beach hosted by Andrew Zimmern, riffs on the food-truck craze. Both cost about $100.

“We can’t believe that just because we’ve been successful for 10 years that we’re going to be popular again this year,” said Lee Schrager, who started the festival in 2001 for Southern Wine & Spirits as a benefit for Florida International University.

Although the SOBE event is one of country’s two top food and wine festivals — the other is in Aspen, Colo., each summer — Schrager isn’t resting on his laurels: “Keeping it exciting requires a lot of attention to detail.”

Even the signature and perennially sold-out Bubble Q was revamped and moved from Friday to Thursday, and the price for it was dropped $50, to $300. Now, guests will be washing down their barbecue not just with Moët Chandon champagne, but with a selection of the company’s signature brands including Belvedere Intense Unfiltered Vodka and Hennessy VS Cognac.

“We wanted to refresh the whole event and make it appeal to a more trendy audience,” said Gene Robinson, senior vice president of Moët Hennessy USA, the original Bubble Q sponsor before it dropped the event for a number of years.

Four months ago, Schrager scaled down his expectations for this year’s festival, worried there would be a slowdown in ticket sales, even though the event has seen an unbroken string of annual revenue growth for the past 10 years. Last year’s festival drew more than 57,000 guests, generated $4.6 million in ticket sales and raised about $2.2 million for the Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management at Florida International University.

But Schrager’s caution turned out to be unnecessary. As the festival opens, most of the nearly 50 different events are sold out; organizers have already eclipsed last year’s ticket sales number. Late Wednesday, there were still a limited number of tickets available for Sunday’s $225 Grand Tasting, select wine seminars and Fun & Fit as a Family.

Nearly a third of ticket buyers are out-of-towners like Ryan Miller and his wife, who are flying in from Arlington, Va. They’ve snagged tickets for the Grand Tasting, Party Impossible and may try to pick up tickets to another event through scalpers. Although they have spent about $700 on tickets already, plus two nights at a Miami Beach hotel, Miller said he didn’t hesitate to return after having so much fun last year.