The 2013 Wine Bloggers Conference was rated by attendees as the best conference yet.
The conference scored a 4.13 on our 1-5 scale in which four equals “very good” while five equals “outstanding”. The first conference in 2008 in Sonoma scored 4.12 while the 2010 conference in Walla Walla scored 4.11.
Attendees loved the city of Penticton and the Okanagan wine area. They were very impressed with the wines they tried. And we heard repeatedly they enjoyed the organization of the conference.
But we at Zephyr Adventures know from fifteen years of running active tours there is always something to improve. And if you ask people for suggested improvements, they will give them to you. Even on a tour where a group of twenty travelers scores everything “outstanding”, we still get a myriad of suggestions for improvement. This might just be people trying to be helpful but also, undoubtedly, reflects the variety of impressions people have and the different ways people see the world.
You want suggestions? Ask bloggers.
We take away an amazing amount of knowledge from the post-conference surveys. We score everything on a 1-5 scale and compare scores not only to every other WBC but to all the conferences Zephyr runs. (The highest-scored conference we have ever run was the first European Beer Bloggers Conference, which scored 4.59.) We also get an amazing variety of comments.
We make changes every year and will be changing things again in 2014. We will have one-hour breaks scheduled on Friday and Saturday afternoons. We’ll go back to the main Thursday evening through Sunday morning time frame. We’ll try to get better wine glasses and we’ll definitely spend more effort coordinating with the excursion providers to make sure the excursions run on time.
We appreciate the time those of you spent to provide feedback. Much of the feedback is contradictory (“We want more content sessions” and “It would have been nice to have free time to explore the city.”) Other comments just aren’t that useful. (“Did you not realize you need serious modern bandwidth at a blogging conference?” Uh, yes. And we paid for it. Via a local tech company. But sometimes you actually don’t get what you pay for.) But, overall, the comments and suggestions are very useful and we read every single one.
We’d like to point out some of the top-rated events and sessions at the 2013 conference, giving credit to those who deserve it:
- Kelowna pre-conference excursion
- “Vineyards and Geology” and “Paddleboarding and Wine” wine country visits
- Thursday reception at See Ya Later Ranch, scoring an awesome 4.81!
- Saturday breakfast in the park courtesy of the Downtown Penticton Association
- Saturday block session on Videography, Photography, and Podcasting
But really, thank you to all our sponsors, our presenters, and our attendees – for providing us with excellent feedback and numerous suggestions!
Wow! Cool to see that the Videography, Photography, and Podcasting session was so well rated! So glad that I got to be a part of that.
I really enjoyed my first WBC and am happy to hear bloggers found the Videography, Photography, and Podcasting useful! Monique
Over here at the Downtown Penticton Association we are thrilled to hear you enjoyed the breakfast! We were very happy to have you in our beautiful downtown!
It was great to have everyone here and we are glad to see so many enjoyed our Paddleboarding and Wine Naramata experience. Look forward to seeing everyone again soon.
Tina & Hugh – Naramata Bench Wineries Association
Hi Allan,
What wonderful news. It was a privilege for us to host the Kelowna Excursion as part of the conference. We are humbled that our blogger friends rated it so favourably! We’re also very proud that our wine industry in the Okanagan Valley was such a hit. Our congratulations to the team in Penticton on a great core conference! Thank you.
Catherine and Jenny from Tourism Kelowna