On Sunday, at the inaugural Beer Bloggers Conference in Boulder, Colorado, I stood up in front of the room and announced that there would be a European Beer Bloggers Conference in London in 2011.
I’m working with Zephyr Adventures, the organisers who also arrange successful wine and food conferences, on the European one. My role is to help sort out a venue, hotels and sponsors, plus have an input in the agenda and generally tweet and blog the hell out of it – my ‘payment’ was being taken to the US conference to see how they did things over there.
I get to have a good say into what I think will work in Europe. This means that I will be trying to arrange the weekend that I really want to go to. I saw the sessions which worked and the ones which didn’t work so well in Boulder, or at least sessions which wouldn’t work so well in front of a British and European audience. The difference is simple: the European beer blogging community is smaller and people already know one another quite well, therefore the event needs to be more social than academic. Plus, I don’t think there will be many European bloggers who want a two-hour session on maximising SEO, studying analytics or the benefits (or not) to adding adverts to your site (correct me if I’m wrong and we can arrange it!).
I’ve got lots of cool ideas for the conference, there are some great sponsors already and a great location and I’m personally very excited and I think all the other beer bloggers should be too (and I’m not just saying that!). A live beer blogging (kind of like speed dating with breweries) will almost definitely happen, a Bring Your Own Bottle night will be an in-person help-yourself beer swap, there’ll be two beer dinners, I’m hoping for a brewery visit or two, a twitter blind tasting, some food and beer pairing... Not your usual ‘conference’ activity, so I suggest you shed the notion of a boring lecture-style conference; this is an online conference and therefore it’s about all the voices in the room.
I’m sure some people will wonder what the point is but for me it’s about galvanising the beer bloggers and improving the overall quality by looking at issues that surround what we do (such as twitter beer reviews/tasting notes and if they work; the effectiveness of blogging; the industry involvement; the future of beer writing; an open debate about do’s and dont’s of blogging), discussing them in a practical and involving way. It’s also about having a great weekend drinking great beers! It won’t be academic, it’ll be practical and interesting and based around beer and the internet and the best ways of communicating – even if you have no interest in a ‘conference’ it’ll still be a fascinating weekend of events which you won’t be able to enjoy anywhere else, that’s for sure.
It’ll be in May or early June and will last two to three days (Friday and Saturday will be the core, with beer dinners each evening, and then a Sunday plan will be there for those who want to stay on longer - Sunday will hopefully involve a brewery and a London pub crawl, so nothing too demanding!). It’ll be very affordable (it’s currently going to be £65 to attend, but this might change, and that cost will include the evening meals and all the beer you can drink) and we’re also working with hotels to find a good rate for attendees. And it won’t just be UK beer bloggers – I hope there will be European bloggers, US bloggers, industry people, breweries, brewers (pouring their beer), beer writers, food and wine bloggers/writers and more, so quite a mix. It’s also the perfect opportunity for a brewery to talk to the key online writers and present their beers to them.
What do you think? Are you interested in this? What would you like to see at the conference? (This is the US agenda) If anyone has any ideas for sessions then let me know and I'll add them to the list - this is about what we all would like to see there! I’ll be writing about the US conference more and you’ll hopefully get a good feeling about what it was like (and it was excellent!). We’ll be announcing all the important details (dates, venue, hotel, sponsors) in the next few weeks and then in the next few months we’ll announce the definitive agenda as it gets decided.
Hi Mark
ReplyDeleteThanks for this - I can't wait. Sounds to me like just the sort of thing we could do with here. Especially interested in the dates as I'm trying to arrange a homebrew festival here in Kent and I wouldn't want it to clash.
Taking beer blogging further into the real world..........
ReplyDeletesounds like fun!!
ReplyDeleteIt's an excellent idea and I'm up for it! I think the blind tasting could be a great eye opener, and I'll get thinking about other topics - hope people find "twitter beer reviews/tasting notes" useful otherwise I might as well shut my website down ;)
ReplyDeleteI just hope it doesn't fall on the weekend of the 4th/5th June as I doubt I could make it - Baroness's birthday you see...
Count me in! £65 sounds like a great price for 2 whole days, it'll be like a weekend-long twissup where the beer comes to us.
ReplyDeleteSounds great, would love to be involved. Though, please avoid 8 - 12th June as it's Mondiale de la beer in Montreal. A lot of the American bloggers will be there (and hopefully me too).
ReplyDeleteDave - Or further into an unreal one? Seriously. It sounds like fun if nothing else and life should be fun.
ReplyDeleteSounds great, I'd love to be involved
ReplyDeleteI've been to a twissup, I've touched Zak Avery's coat, I've held Tandlemans umbrella, I've seen that RabidGlyn is a bit of a short arse in the flesh, I have basked in the glow of of Dredge, I've spoken to Wooly Dave. What more is there to do? What would a conference be other than a glorified pissup?
ReplyDeleteThis isn't on Mark. You can't just connive with an events company and announce this as a fait accompli over everyone else's heads.
ReplyDeleteSounds like an awsome plan. Will definatly try and make it.
ReplyDelete"...You can't just connive with an events company and announce this as a fait accompli over everyone else's heads."
ReplyDelete!!!!
Best beer blogging conspiracy comment ever.
Not sure what's conspiracist about it. After all, where did this (entirely new to a regular reader of beer blogs) idea come from? Which European beer bloggers suggested it to Mark? If the answers are "Boulder" and "nobody", well, see above.
ReplyDeleteWhat are the economics of it, anyway? Is it primarily a conference (organised for the punters, financed by the punters) or a trade fair (financed by the trade, organised for the trade)? If it's the former, then £65 - including evening meals and all the beer you can drink (!) - sounds very light indeed.
Sounds very interesting.
ReplyDeleteI really hope I can make it, Mark. I'd love to learn more about British beer and the EU beer scene. That is, if anyone would care to educate this Yank.
ReplyDeleteRegardless, It was great to meet you in Boulder, and I know this will be a success. Cheers!
I wonder how many people got out to Pivni Filosof's "International Gathering of Beer Bloggers" in Prague back in October?
ReplyDeleteI sure will attend! A very good initiative!
ReplyDeleteGreat to see many positive comments! I'm very keen to make it an open forum in terms of what happens over the two days that it's on - I will make suggestions and then we can work out the agenda as a whole.
ReplyDeleteBarm - What are your issues with it? A number of people were contacted about it and said it was a worthwhile idea, I was then chosen as the one to help them out. Zephyr are an established company who put on a number of these each year around the world, this is the first beer one in Europe. It certainly isn't fait accompli - nothing is set and the only thing that will be decided by us (me and Zephyr) is the date. It's just like an extended Twissup. Not everyone will want to go and it's not compulsory, but I think a lot will want to go. Those who do want to attend will get a say in what they want the weekend to be.
Phil - like I said to Barm, this is a company who approached us (some British beer bloggers) about the possibility of a European conference to follow up their US one. It's funded by sponsors (ie breweries paying to attend and serve their beer, which is obviously a great opportunity for them to get coverage and talk to the writers on the front line) so paid for by the trade but there for the bloggers (who bridge the trade/consumer line).
Cooking Lager - what more would you want?!
I would suggest less back slapping and more collaborative efforts - maybe working on a piece to pitch to a number of newspapers or mags or something like that. It would be good for the conference to produce something tangible rather than for all the bloggers to get drunk and how they're changing the world ;-)...
ReplyDeleteAnon - There will be an element of that! The whole idea of coming together is about collaboration too, I think. My hope is that at the end we'll all have more respect for what we do and a more considered approach for it... but who knows!
ReplyDeleteOf course, we'll still get drunk and slap each others backs as well!
I think the "fait accompli" part is the fact that it's happening next year in London - and the fact that it's happening at all, come to that.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't to say it's a bad thing that you're organising it - just that it seems a bit more top-down than some of us would have expected.
funded by sponsors (ie breweries paying to attend and serve their beer, which is obviously a great opportunity for them to get coverage and talk to the writers on the front line)
Sounds somewhere between a trade show and a press jolly (I've been involved in both).
I think its worth saying whilst the euro blogging community is smaller than the US, its only some of the people who know each other already, not everyone does, and a conferance that comes across as too cliquey, basically just a group of mates having a meetup, isnt necessarily that inviting to people not in the main group.
ReplyDeleteI mean Id have thought at the very least one of the aims of the conference should be that it enthuses a brand new set of beer bloggers, but you cant do that if only the people you know who already blog, turn up.
my 2p
Mark, my issue is that you don't have a mandate to organise anything on behalf of European beer bloggers. Noone has asked you to organise this, you haven't asked us publicly what we think of the idea before now, and you've kept your association with Zephyr secret until now. If you're going to call something a conference, it needs to be representative of the people attending. This has unfortunately failed at that first hurdle.
ReplyDeleteI think if breweries have to pay to serve their beer then that wouldn't be too persuasive for the craft microbreweries which would be required for an event like this. Travelodge in London is only £19 and cost wouldn't be too much. The venue is the most important element. Plus the beer needs to rest for 24 hours so it would need to have a day in advance to prepare.
ReplyDeleteStono - You are right and this should just sound like a jolly for mates. By know each other I don't necessarily and only mean personally but also by name or reputation. There are so many US beer bloggers that they get lost whereas we have much few in Europe and there's a reading culture where we read each others. With anything like this there will be people who know each other already and those who don't; my feeling is that a more social and practical conference (compared to the US which had a number of technical sessions) would work better in Europe.
ReplyDeleteBarm - I disagree. There is no mandate but does there need to be one? Isn't this and chicken and egg argument?! I have asked a few people and so has Zephyr and I wouldn't have got involved if I didn't think it would be a success or something that people would want to go to - I'm working hard on it, so it's not just like I write a couple of blogs and it happens! And Zephyr asked for it to be kept quiet until the announcement on Sunday - their call. And it will be fully representative of those attending as everyone who wants to go will have a say in what's on. I'm not sure I really understand your issues.
Thomas - The venue is excellent and the costs for breweries aren't prohibitive. And if they want to drop their beer off the day before then that's fine.
Are we having cask beer too or just a load of bottles. Are we having some keg beer for that matter? Serious point.
ReplyDeleteTandleman - I anticipate all. I'm not sure whether the venue will allow casks but we can definitely ask - I like the idea of having a couple on standby the whole time. If not then it'll be bottles during the day but in the evening we will leave the venue and go elsewhere, one dinner, for example, will hopefully be in a pub, plus there will be pub crawls, etc. I hope to get from Fuller's to Meantime so cask, keg and bottles will all be present.
ReplyDeleteHi all,
ReplyDeleteAs Mark is showing to you via his comments, we are very open to all ideas to make this conference a success and to adapt it to what is most important to European beer bloggers. We do want to make this accessible to those outside the UK and, in fact, invite North American beer bloggers and those from farther abroad as well.
I think the goal is in part to have a great social get together with lots of beer but that is not the only goal. There should be some learning aspect and I love the idea of a collaborative effort but that will depend on what all of you want.
More details coming soon.
- Allan, Zephyr Adventures
I think it's a great idea, Mark. Really, I do. Go for it.
ReplyDeleteTaking beer blogging further into the real world..........
ReplyDelete