Some Thoughts on #CHAtweetup2013

Originally published at Tiki Bar Online

What a weekend! 8 or 9 months months or so of planning culminated in a whirlwind of excitement, a mob of guests, and a huge, billowing cloud of second-hand smoke that may still be hanging over parts of east Chattanooga.

If you weren’t there, I really can’t explain it all to you. It truly was a “had to be there” type of thing and even if you were, there is no way to experience all that occurs. If you want a recap of sorts, I encourage you to check out @CHAtweetup on Twitter and also to search for the hashtag, #CHAtweetup2013. It was fairly well documented by the folks who attended.

So I’m just write down some of the things that occurred to me during and since the event…

Turnout was great. Our first year (2011) we had about 85 or 90 people buy tickets and about 25 (maybe more) industry people attend. Last year we sold about 225 tickets and had roughly 50 industry folks in the house. For 2013, we sold right at 260 tickets and had 60 or so industry people attending (why no exact number of industry folks? I’ll explain next).

Response was fantastic. Our inaugural event attracted 18 sponsoring companies (mostly cigar makers, but a couple accessory makers, as well). Last year we ended up with 38 or so sponsors. This year we finished with over 50. How many more than 50 may forever be a mystery. We had right at 50 when I left my house on Wednesday to head to Burns to get ready for the event. We added no fewer than 3 more companies before the weekend was over…and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Our “open door” policy toward sponsors has been a huge success; we were considering changing that for next year, but I will argue to keep it the way it is now. Those 50+ sponsors sent tons of representatives…some companies just had one individual, some had two…very few had zero. Keeping track of all of them was very nearly impossible, but it will be something I try to do better next year.

A great time was had by all. Maybe “all” isn’t totally accurate, but I literally only heard one real complaint for the weekend. Yes, we acknowledge that the “heavy hors d’oeuvres” on the river boat were not all that heavy. As one person said, “They sucked!” I agree…cheese, crackers, grapes, pretzels, and cookies does not equal heavy hors d’oeuvres. Aside from that, though, I heard a lot of very positive feedback about the river boat. If we can do it again, we probably will…and we will have someone cater the hors d’oeuvres to our specifications.

No one was seriously injured on the bull. This might be a miracle in and of itself, to be honest. With the airbag setup around the bull, I thought injuries might be impossible, but there were some strained backs and necks. Hopefully everyone is mending well and getting ready to ride again next year. During the after-party, I had an offer from another manufacturer to sponsor next year’s version…and he said that they would throw in a prize: the first person who could ride the bull for 10 seconds would get a box of cigars for a year. I won’t tell you who it was yet, but if we go with this plan, you’ll want to win these cigars.

We got the IPCPR’s attention. I’m not sure exactly who it is that runs the IPCPR’s twitter account (@theIPCPR), but two people (Kyle Whalen and Dawn Conger) from the organization were at the Tweet-Up and they said some very nice things about it. Thank you for giving the ‘Noog a look.

Some small manufacturers got a needed bump. Last year the big news from the Tweet-Up was Noel Rojas from Guayacan Cigars. After a fairly disastrous IPCPR show, he came to our event and was the breakout hit. This year there were several small companies that needed a little buzz and coming to our event provided some…and hopefully will continue to provide a little more in the future. Rebellious Cigars from South Carolina was there and made some great contacts with consumers and a few retailers; their Maduro was quite good as well…a review will be coming up at some point when I get my palate back. Also in attendance and getting some attention were brand owners from Jaxsin Cigars, GTO Cigars, and Cabal Cigars. The brand that really made some waves, though, with myself and Burns General Manager, Matt Allen, was King’s Cigars. Anwar and Pete seemed to be everyone constantly throughout the event and their Connecticut (Barón) is fantastic. Is it the best Conny on the market right now? If not, it’s got to be close. I need more to know for sure. And they have several other cigars I need to try, too.

I need to carry some bags with blank labels on them. I think 4 or 5 people handed me unbanded cigars and told me, “Try this and tell me what you think.” I was able to come up with some tricks to remember what they were, but it would be easier if I just had some small bags with blank labels on them. I could write what the cigar is and who gave it to me on the label, slip the stogie inside and throw that in my travel humidor without another thought…then smoke it later when my palate wasn’t so fried.

Manufacturers had a great time. It sounds like most manufacturers don’t have a great time at the retail show, but I guess that’s to be expected…it’s work! As opposed to the show’s high-pressure sales environment, punctuated by a few evening parties where they can cut loose (but not too much…they have to sell again the next day), here the whole point is to party. Manufacturers and reps were having fun, running around, socializing with other companies’ reps…and telling people about their cigars when they were asked. But even then the pressure is not there to get people to buy…but the people buy anyway.

Sales were very good. I won’t hear actual sales numbers until later this week, but the preliminary numbers I heard were very good, although maybe slightly off from last year. I would say the biggest problem we had there was lack of any “signature” or “exclusive” cigars. The last two years we had the new LEs from Room 101 Cigars in stock for the Tweet-Up and we were the first to have them for several weeks. No such luck this year. This is another detail to work on for next year.

Kyle Hoover from Ezra Zion suggested we might change the name next year to the “Chattanooga Drink-Up.” Judging from the fact that car bombs ran the bar completely out of Guinness, this might not be a bad idea.

We made the front page of the paper. The Chattanooga Times-Free Press posted a great story about our event on Saturday. You can read it HERE. It was great to see front page news about cigars and it not be about increased taxes or FDA regulations. It was something everyone in the cigar community can be proud of.

I’m still in the decompressing mode from this year’s event. I’m catching up on work and I need to start collating photos and video. I have plenty of footage myself from the bull riding on Saturday night and hope to post it later this week. I’ve seen some photos posted and will try to get permission to post them on the Tweet-Up website as well. If you have a photo gallery you want to share with us, email me at [email protected] and I’ll make sure to include it.

We ready to start all over again. This Thursday the Burns staff will be having a meeting to talk about what went right and what went wrong with this year’s event. Most importantly, what can we do better? After that, we will probably take a month or two off to focus on other things (we have a remodel coming up after the first of the year), but then we will get things going for next year.

This year we had 4 “major sponsors” who provided cigars for every attendee and had some “extra billing” on our website. We want to do the same thing for next year and even expand it out a bit if possible. So many companies want to do more than the 50-cigar-minimum and we want to give that opportunity if we can. We will discuss that, but if your company wants to be considered for “major” status, let me know at the email address above.

I will compile a list of all sponsors and special guests (as much as possible) and say “Thank You” to all of them in the next few days and just say “You’re Welcome!” to all those who had good things to say, and I’ll let @EzraZionCigars have the final word –