Vilnius Whisky Festival 2019 Summary
On the 6th of April 2019 fourth Vilnius Whisky Festival 2019 took place in Vilnius. We are happy that it grows every year and hopefully, it becomes a beautiful tradition for guests and participants of the event to spend the first Saturday of April there. This year both: the number of guests and participants increased.
We believe that working together with whisky producers, sellers, and guests of the show; it became and going to stay the biggest and most important event of the kind in Lithuania and the Baltic States. This year, the same as years before, the slogan of the festival was “Choose quality before quantity.”
Guests
In the last festival in 2018, 900 people were attending, and as we always aim for growth every year, our goal was to have 1000 people. We took all the legal activities to promote the event and reached our primal goal a while before the event. But the interest was still high, and we started looking for opportunities to increase the number of people.
Since we aim for quality before quantity, we care for both guests and participants to be comfortable at the show. We achieved that by arranging the space wisely and regulating the crowds. One of the two masterclass halls we incorporated to the main area, one of the masterclasses we made on the first floor, we rearranged the space of whisky pairing, increased the number of VIP tickets, and that is how we prepared an area for a bigger audience. And in total, there was a crowd of 1200 people in Vilnius Whisky Festival 2019.
This year we also had a large number of guests from other countries in the region: Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Ukraine, Sweden, Finland, Belarus, and Russia.
Participants
Vilnius Whisky Festival 2019 had 48 exhibition stands in the central area. The number was higher in 7 from 2018 and was largest to date.
And we were especially delighted to see a growing number of guests – participants from whisky distilleries and brand ambassadors at the event.
VIP Lounge
This year the VIP lounge was trendy, and with the number of whisky increased there, it had a twice larger audience form last year.
Every participant could have their whiskies there, but most of the distributors showed no interest in it, and only very few of them brought something. So most of the 70 whiskies there we provided ourselves as organizers of the event. The total worth of bottles in VIP lounge this year was about 9700€.
The idea of the VIP is to have limited, rare, super-premium whiskies that are not available in the central area of the event. There were separate tickets for this hall; we also gave VIP bracelets for brand ambassadors and other guests professionals.
With Whisky
Every year we look for new ideas to show the diversity of consumption of whisky and this year we had some novelties as well. Visitors of “Vilnius Whisky Festival 2019” could try these pairings: Mackmyra whisky with cheese from Masters of Cheese, Bandwagon whiskey with popcorn from Popcorn Lab, Kavalan whisky with ice cream from Dione, Compass Box whisky with ham and olives from a shop Ispaniškas maistas, Bowmore whisky with oysters. Also, visitors could have a cocktail from Monkey Shoulder bar, listen to stories about whisky barrel aged ale from Švyturys, get a wax marked glass from Maker’s Mark and learn a thing or two about men’s shoes and style from Seva The Gentleman.
Masterclasses
There were 5 masterclasses this year. The previous festivals had 4, but with the growing audience, we increased the number. The entrance was free, and with the limited space first 30 visitors could participate. There were numbers of people waiting next to the masterclasses. Masterclasses of Vilnius Whisky Festival 2019 were Compass Box, Tullamore D.E.W., Kavalan, Teeling, and Bunnahabhain with Deanston.
Promotion
With strict and complicated alcohol regulations in Lithuania, we have to work as hard as we can to promote the show and reach the potential visitors. We talked about it everywhere we go: in tastings and events we organize, which we do quite a lot, we were active in social media – which is very difficult with the new law, we gave away vast quantities of festival’s cards, printed and placed promotional posters and bars and specialty shops around Vilnius. Besides all the difficulties we are happy that our campaign was successful and we reached the desired amount of people at the event.
Summary
It is delightful that the festival is growing every year with the number of visitors, participants, and whiskies available there. And the most exciting thing is to get positive reviews about the atmosphere, organization, and audience at the event that we get both from visitors and participants.
We are happy to succeed in gathering a great target audience every year.
A big thank you to you all, who had a part in Vilnius Whisky Festival 2019. See you next year on the 4th of April.
