VILNIUS WHISKY FESTIVAL 2018
On the 7th of April 2018, the third “Vilnius Whisky Festival” took place. The number of guests, participants and whiskies available to try was even larger than in the festivals before.
Guests
Every year we feel ever growing attention for “Vilnius Whisky Festival” and this year’s number of guests in it was higher than in the festivals before. We had over 900 guests in the show. Aiming for friendly and positive atmosphere during the event, also comfortable and constructive communication among participants and consumers, we were limiting the number of guests and their movement inside of the show. A week before the event, we stopped online sales of the tickets for the show.
Another comforting thing is that positive reviews about “Vilnius Whisky Festival” are coming both from Lithuania and abroad. We meet more and more foreigners visiting our show. This year we had a number of guests from Latvia (Riga and Daugavpils whisky clubs), Belarusians, Russians, Polish, Estonians and even some Bulgarians.
Number of guests of previous show is 2016 – 500 guests, 2017 – 800 guests and 2018 – 900 guests.
Participants
There were 41 exhibition stands of participants in the festival. One could find most of the whiskies, available in Lithuania. There were about 250 whiskies there.
We are very pleased with the growing interest of our festival and Lithuanian whisky market from whisky producers. This year we had about 20 guests from different distilleries and brand ambassadors. We had the largest number of them attending, since we started organizing the event.
VIP lounge
The biggest novelty of “Vilnius Whisky Festival 2018” was VIP lounge. Guests could taste more than 50 rare, old, limited edition and exceptional whiskies. The lounge area was closed; guests could get in there with VIP tickets only. The VIP tickets were more expensive than standard tickets. The amount of these tickets was limited as well. But we gave permission to enter the lounge for all festival participants, who came from other countries: brand ambassadors, distillery representatives and etc.
With whisky
Next to the main exhibition hall, we had all other activities of the festival. Like every year, among our main goals is to show different ways to consume whisky. This year guests could find beers, matured in whisky barrels from “Genys Brewing Co.” and “Švyturys”; “Compass Box” whisky and cheese pairing from cheese masters “Say Cheese”; “Amrut” whisky and meat paring from “Gurmano sapnas”; “Teeling” Irish coffee from “Kavos broliai”; ice cream made live with “Kavalan” whisky from “Paradice”. Also, there was a speakeasy bar from “Monkey shoulder” and the stand of “Seva The Gentleman” – a company selling super premium men’s shoes and accessories.
Masterclasses
There were 4 masterclasses during the festival, hosted by guests from distilleries or brand ambassadors. It was Kavalan, Teeling, The Macallan and Glendalough. There were 30 seats in each of it, so it had 120 visitors. Masterclasses had lots of attention from festival’s guests and not all of them managed to get in, because the space was limited. This year there were no tickets for it and 30 first guests could get in from a live row.
Communication
Communication of “Vilnius Whisky Festival 2018” was a big challenge for us, since on the 1st of January 2018 new alcohol regulations took place. There is a ban on advertising of alcohol in Lithuania since then. Because of these regulations, we started selling tickets for the event in late 2017, before the new law took place. Unfortunately, we realized that Lithuanians do not buy tickets long time in advance, so we had to finish our campaign in 2018. We were promoting it in every way we could, sometimes on the fragile line of the law. Visiting bars, events, tastings, trainings and everywhere else, we were giving away festival’s promo cards; we placed stickers of the show on most popular bottles we have and were talking about the festival everywhere we went. We are extremely happy, that our campaign was successful and the expected number of people in the show was reached.
Summary
Nothing else makes us happier, than smooth events and positive reviews from consumers, participants and guests from abroad. We receive many of these this year. We would like to thank you all for it. Here are a few:
Kenny Macdonald (“Glengoyne” brand ambassador, Scotland) – “I visit the festival around the world every year, so I can compare organisation, guests and the show itself. „Vilnius Whisky Festival“ is properly organized and great event, where everything is going very well“.
Loig Le Lay (Distillerie Des Menhirs, France) – „we are not regular guests in whisky festivals, but we are very happy, that we accepted an invitation to visit „Vilnius Whisky Festival 2018“. If I compare it with biggest whisky festivals in Europe, where they have more than 10 000 attendants, we felt very comfortable in Vilnius. We think that participation here might have had more benefits, because we had a chance to communicate in higher quality with guests of the show. The number of people was not as big as in the largest cities of Europe, but the attention of guests was in much better quality and we had much more time to tell our stories for them. Also, in big festivals you can find few hundred whisky brands and it might be very hard for small companies to compete with the big brands. We liked the concept of „Vilnius Whisky Festival“ very much.
Emma Lin (“Kavalan” brand ambassador, Taiwan) – “thank you for a perfectly organized event. “Kavalan” is present in “Vilnius Whisky Festival” every year and we hope that our participation helps to promote premium whisky and moderate consumption of it in Lithuania, so we promise to be here in the future as well.”
Thank you! It was a pleasure to meet you all in “Vilnius Whisky Festival 2018”. See you again on the 6th of April 2019?
