SWIRCA festival was a huge success

Kenny Lucas · Post by **Kenny Lucas** » Sun Aug 19, 2007 5:31 pm

Thanks to all that attended and helped with the event, everything went smooth and we had a line of thirsty people the entire night. I hope we can have the same success at the Brew ha ha in September.

Chris Norrick · Post by **Chris Norrick** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 10:14 am

Agreed. There a few issues we should discuss to make next years better but overall it was a great time. Try to keep the discussion constructive by listing a pro with each con. In scouts we call it Thorns and Roses.

Thorn: Loud music. I know we are close to the band but we have got to get the music volume lower. We really just need background music. I had a killer voice the next day from yelling for 4 hours. People were interested in our club and beers but it was nearly impossible to talk to them.
Rose: One dancing girl on the 'dance floor'.

Thorn: Our booth was tight. We'll need to upgrade to two tables next year and maybe invest in a club jockey box.
Rose: We had 27 freaking beers to choose from! That was amazing. Order By Number worked out really well with the loud music. We need to do it with the bottles too. We also could set up a shift system and rotate through our booth, dumping slop buckets, subbing for other vendors so they can take a break, etc.

Thorn: Sample glasses. I thought it was a little strange to upset the volunteers by shortchanging them on the glasses. We don't ask for much in return for the work. A little gratitude and a souvenir glass isn't too much to ask.
Rose: Didn't run out of glasses this year.

Thorn: More outside tables to escape the noise.
Rose: Needing more seating is a good thing. Having the over flow worked well. Just needed more seats out there.

Thorn: Make the main isle wider. It got really packed out there and it was hard to move around.
Rose: Just a sign that this is popular. Overall it worked better than last year.

What are your thought? Get them down now while they are still fresh.

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Kenny Lucas · Post by **Kenny Lucas** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 4:08 pm

Got this E-mail from Jim and Debbie Frazier from FOSSILS, they were there representing New Albanian.

Kenny

We just wanted to say thank you for all of the help from the Ohio Valley Homebrewers Association at athe SWIRCA event. Again, AVHA is welcome to come to our FOSSILS meetings.
Please check out the following link and our comments.

Thanks again,

Jim and Debbie Frazier

http://potablecurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2 ... st-18.html

We also got a great write up from Bob at indianabeer.com, check it out!
http://indianabeer.com/news.html

jefrey3 · Post by **jefrey3** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 9:15 pm

I want to add my thanks to everybody for their support and effort. The SWIRCA festival wouldn't happen without you.

SWIRCA is bringing glasses to the September meeting for the volunteers. Better late than never I guess.

Dwayne_Delaney · Post by **Dwayne_Delaney** » Wed Aug 22, 2007 6:33 pm

All good points Chris.

Here's mine:
Suggestion: All of the round tables should be moved outside.
Reasoning: Round tables are good at allowing people to converse and mingle. With the volume of the music inside, this is next to impossible. With the relatively quiet outside, the round tables would work.

Suggestion: Many more regular tables inside.
Reasoning: We've heard from certain people at SWIRCA that more regular tables inside would promote the image that the festival is some sort of Beirstube that would attract only youth interested in getting wasted. This reasoning is totally backwards. By not giving weary festival-goers a place to rest their tired dogs, you are actually alienating the older patrons who have a harder time standing for four hours.

Just my $.02.