The second-annual Beer Marketing & Tourism Conference will take place March 6 – 8 in Burlington, Vermont.
The inaugural conference took place this past March in Asheville, North Carolina with 242 industry attendees from throughout North America and the world. Attendees included representatives from breweries, tour operators, brewery guilds, destination management organizations, beer bloggers, and the press from as far away as the UK, Ireland, and Australia.
The need for a beer marketing and tourism conference was confirmed at the first event. While the craft beer industry has experienced a decades-long boom, times have changed. There are now over 5,300 breweries in the United States alone and yet the double digit growth rates craft beer had experienced are now gone. This means increasingly intense competition for visitors at tap rooms and shelf space in retails stores.
We are extremely pleased to be taking the conference to Burlington and Vermont. Most of us in the industry already know Vermont ranks 1st in breweries per capita among US states. Vermont is also well known as a tourist destination thanks to its wide-open spaces, excellent skiing, agricultural products, and beer.
We have received outstanding support from the Vermont community, especially the Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing and the Vermont Convention Bureau, which are hosting us for two lunches and a reception – included in the registration price. We will also be adding pre-conference and post-conference excursions for attendees.
If you are interested to pour your beers for your fellow attendees, we have two options for you. Staffing a booth at the Expo costs only $500 ($400 if you select this when you register) and is free to non-profit or governmental brewery guilds and DMOs who register for the conference. And breweries and others can participate in Live Beer Social for only $200 in which sponsors have five minutes to pour a beer for a table of attendees as they record their thoughts via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and more, reaching approximately 70 participants in 10 rounds.
Registration is open now and prices increase as we get closer to the conference date.
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