DISQUS

Andrea · 7 months ago

Thanks for the post Ryan, I do hope that wine expo people start getting a clue and modernize their marketing methods or at least have provide decent food samples (free or part of the admission price) that I can munch on while tasting so I don't end up "head drunk" within 30 mins!!! The wine fairs that I visited in Miami while I was living there were quite decent, especially the South Beach Wine and Food Festival http://www.sobewineandfoodfest.com/2009/index.php -it may be just as expensive as theirs but completely worth every penny! Maybe Euro wine fairs could learn something from them?

Bill · 7 months ago

Ryan,

It is your job to bridge the gap between geekdom and event planning, and make some money to boot. Excellent suggestions and a niche waiting to be filled. Why not Catavino?

BB

Jim White · 7 months ago

Whilst I agree with almost all the points you make here, I found that this year at Fenavin there was free wifi, the catalogue was online on the web site, and that I couldn't do on-line what I most go to wine fairs for: To actually meet the producers, export managers etc, and to taste the wine.

I don't want to do business with someone who I have never met, and to actually get samples form every possible supplier, then taste them at home would just not be practical.

So yes, certain seminars could be made available on-line, if I am at the fair, I can go along in person and actually take part.

Ryan Opaz · 7 months ago

Jim, good points, but first...the Wifi if it was free was not easy to find or to stay connected to. So as the last FENAVIN and this one both made this hard to do, I have to say I was not impressed. It should be a priority to make it work, as opposed to an afterthought.

If the Catalog is online, then I'm sorry, but I didn't see it. When I go there now all I find is a list of exhibitors, with no contact info. So part of the Catalog is online, but not the useful part! :)

Now I agree there is value in these fairs, but I would say that fairs of this size are not worth the time. In the end using the web to do "pre-screenings" that would give you the visitor a chance to be more productive at the fair.

I think it needs to be a hybrid between online and offline so as to make the event more productive.

Warren Edwardes · 7 months ago

It was great being invited to FENAVIN and great bumping into you Ryan at LIWF on Tuesday.

Some thoughts as I read in the Spanish press claims that FENAVIN was as good as LIWF. I am afraid it falls way behind on a few basics which are to me much more important than technology.

1. The feedback form is on paper to be faxed. Well I receive faxes via email and can't send faxes. So this blog gets my comments before the organisers.

2. Smoking and strong perfume were quite common at FENAVIN. OK there was a lot of Body Odour at LIWF so that evens things.

3. There were no general large floor standing spitoons. The small table-top ones get filled quickly and generate un-hygenic splash-back. Also the exhibitors had to keep dashing off to empty the spitoons and leaving their stands empty.

4. The toilets were dirty from from very first day.

5 I thought women were using the men's toilets until i discovered that the red stains in the toilet bowls were a result of spitoons being emptied. Not very sound in terms of germ control.

6. The glassware had to be taken to the cleaning stations by the exhibitors themselves. Is there full employment in Ciudad Real?

7. On arrival i was SOLD a catalogue. Hey I have been flown from London plus taxi Barajas to Atocha and then train to Ciudad Real and a coach to a paid up hotel and I have to BUY a show catalogue only to find a FREE catalogue (on paper) in the business centre.

8. But I love Spain so forgive most things. But then at 15:00 on the last day Thursday most of the stands decided that they were going to pack up and go home including everybody in Las Canarias and most of Malaga. The show had been advertised as closing at 19:00 and I still had work to do and only a handful of exhibitors were still there at 19:00.

Wine Pleasures · 7 months ago

Yes but yet you (wine importers) still support them and continue to go and then the next one as bad as the previous. Shouldn't you make the decision to stop going to these large trade events - that way organisers might wake up and find out why. Wineries are also guilty - they continue to pay Fenavin, Alimentaria et al money for what amounts to a small % of quality buyers while the remainder of buyers are there for a good party which of course they get.

Wine Pleasures · 7 months ago

Have a look at what this buyer had to say about large trade fairs.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ypy1TPfwnaA Reinforces some of the points made here