We have posted the draft agenda of the 2012 Wine Bloggers Conference. This agenda reflects input from 2011 conference attendees, our blogger advisory board, and our hosts at the Oregon Wine Board.
As you look at the draft agenda, notice these changes from previous years:
First and perhaps biggest, we have moved the wine country visits to Friday afternoon from the traditional Saturday time slot. This was suggested by a 2011 WBC attendee and independently requested by the Oregon Wine Board. We think it will allow people to join these fun excursions and meet other participants right at the start of the conference and, as one of our advisory board members pointed out, allow participants to concentrate on the academic content for Saturday and Sunday morning.
We have also structured the Thursday Welcome Reception to be more amenable to meeting new people and renewing old friendships. The Oregon Wine Board will be sponsoring this reception, meaning we’ll still have great wines, but we will hand out name badges for those in attendance and create opportunities for people to meet each other. This is still optional – you won’t miss any conference content if you can’t arrive on Thursday.
On Friday night we have added a new event called the Night of Many Bottles, essentially a bring-your-own-wine party. We have done this the last two years at the Beer Bloggers Conference to great success and this has gone on since the very beginning of the WBC in an informal manner. This year, we are giving the wine sharing its own time slot. Bloggers Christophe Smith and Drew Lazorchak have volunteered to coordinate this party, so look for good things to come.
We have moved the Blogger-Led Discussions, so popular this past conference, to a prime time slot on Saturday morning and increased the length to 80 minutes. Also at the suggestion of a 2011 attendee, we have added a Sunday morning Q&A with Wine Blog Awards Winners who are present. Combined with a repeat of the Ignite Wine event, which will be limited to bloggers, there will be plenty of time for blogger participation.
What hasn’t changed? We will still have pre-conference excursions into Oregon wine country, breakout sessions (three hours with three sessions per hour), keynote speeches, and Live Wine Blogging.
We hope you like the agenda!
An elegant along with smooth refrigerator, the Waring Pro Single Bottle Wines Chiller is made to both awesome white wines and in many cases red-colored bottles of wine.
I would love to be able to make one of these conferences. Thanks for the post.