We had over 120 people complete an online survey after the 2009 Wine Bloggers Conference. As an Organizer, I find it important to not only ask for feedback from participants but also to complete the loop by letting everyone know what that feedback is. Here you go.
We use a five-point scale where 3=good, 4=very good, and 5=outstanding. (We don’t want to get below that but 1=needs improvement and 2=fair.) Our goal is to be above 4.0 in results for the conference.
The 2009 conference received an overall score of 3.96. This is slightly below where we want to be and below our 2008 score of 4.12. Those of you who attended know we faced some challenges at this conference, including poor wifi at the hotel and tough travel logistics when we visited Napa on Saturday. We’ll make sure to improve both of those things in 2010.
The four events at the conference that rated 4.0 or higher were the Napa Valley dinners (4.58), the keynote speech by Barry Schuler (4.45), the Sunday lunch at Dry Creek Vineyard (4.35), and the Sunday Vineyard Walks put on by my company (4.00).
We also received many suggestions for improvement and have already made the following changes:
- The Wine Blogger Awards presentation will be live (announced on the spot) and shorter.
- We will separate the Live Wine Blogging into whites (Friday) and reds (Saturday).
- We have added another 1.5 hours of breakout sessions on Friday in addition to those scheduled for Sunday.
- We have added a Wine & Food Pairing session and a Taco Truck Tasting session to expand the focus to food in addition to wine.
Overall, the conference was a success with 85% of respondents saying they hoped to be able to attend the 2010 conference scheduled for June 25-27 in Walla Walla, Washington.
Thanks to everyone for participating!
Allan Wright, Co-Organizer