RateBeer European Summer Gathering 2016: Call For Proposals

Call for proposals: RBESG 2016
Deadline for proposals: 17 April 2016
Voting: 19-25 April (should we have competing proposals)

OK team, it is time to nail down the location for this year’s RateBeer European Summer Gathering. If you would like to put forth a proposal, please drop me a beermail with an outline of the event (the ’Proposal’) by the end of the day on 17 April.

The most important items to think about are:

Dates – please be as specific as possible and/or offer the potential date ranges for the event. Summer Gatherings typically run Thursday evening through Saturday, although some have continued into Sunday/Monday. Summer Gatherings typically take place during either June, July or August (although June may be a little too soon for some people to organise).

Planned visits during the Gathering - you do not need to have a finalised itinerary for your proposal but you should at least know you have the involvement of enough breweries/bars/bottle shops/etc. to warrant a full weekend for visitors.

Lodging and transportation options - if it’s difficult to reach a destination and there’s nowhere to stay, it will be hard to attract attendees.

Cost – this can be difficult to project during the proposal stage, but if you can provide any guidance it will help potential attendees in their consideration to attend.

N.B. Also, the Great British Beer Festival in London runs from 9-13 August and MANY RBians typically attend. So you may not want to run the RBESG during the weekend before, during or after this festival given that some folks might not be able to travel back to back weekends (which could reduce potential attendance). It is not mandatory that you adhere to this recommendation, but it is probably worth considering.

For reference, previous RBESGs have been held at:

2015 – Copenhagen/Malmo
2014 – London
2013 – Belgium/Netherlands
2012 – Vienna/Bratislava
2011 – London
2010 – Rome
2009 – Sheffield
2008 – Pilsen
2007 – Glasgow/Edinburgh
2006 – Gothenburg
2005 – Copenhagen
2004 – Stockholm

If you would like to submit a proposal, as stated above, please send to me via beermail by 17 April. (Alternatively, drop me a beermail and I can provide an email address if you would like to send an attachment - I believe this is what the organisers did last year.) If there is more than one submission, I will review the bids with other European admins and then collate the bids and put them up for voting ASAP - hopefully by 19 April - after which we will have a one-week voting period, which would end 25 April. Should we need to take the selection process to a vote, further details will be provided.

Any questions, comments or requests for clarification/help with submission/voting or bid examples from the past can be submitted to me via beermail or addressed here in the thread.

Cheers!

As examples of what a proposal should look like, here are the proposals from last year, both of which were solid (as noted above, Copenhagen/Malmo ended up winning the vote):

Copenhagen/Malmo: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10BeZwW4EoL5QtIH8MEE7FBHNQlmRdjYDbVdClexpocU/edit

Gothenburg: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xMeIjIQPvfKEEQ_0bcT5d4vDcc3xJT8iUlDkfb9XN30/edit

Thanks for kicking this off officially and posting the list of previous venues.

Enthusiasm and organisational fervour to actually organise one of these seems to reside mainly in the UK, NL and Scandinavia.

I’d be interested which members were responsible for organising all those former gatherings as I take these proposals are rarely one-man operations even in the initial conceptional stages.
Are open discussions with calls for ideas for one specific city "allowed", - or is the pre-deliberation & brainstorming phase not supposed to be conducted in the open?
Given the number of expat RBians in Berlin, that would have to be an English language discussion and such a brainstorming would basically become an "open voting" thread.

As mentioned in an earlier thread, I’d feel very tempted to help put in a German bid.
Only with the German scene being scattered as it is (being a historically decentralised state) and me having less and less time on my hands by the actual time of the gathering, I would be interested whether a "volunteer committee" could be formed - made up of RBians who know the scene well, not necessarily German.

I could easily put together a 3-day ground plan for a Berlin city crawl with the scene booming as it is right now, Biergartens scheduled to be serving new Berliner Weisses this summer. But I can’t guarantee I can tie all of the local organisational aspects together in time.

Basically what I seem to be steering towards here is the following: if every EU-based RBian who’s half interested in having this in Berlin this summer puts in 2 of his suggestions in a new "Berlin for RBESG 2016" thread (and no competing Polish bids come in, another booming scene) we basically have ourselves an "open-source" proposal and can work towards nominating a few "ambassadors" to do the actual on-the-ground planning?

These are just a few preliminary reservations I have that keep me from self-nominating for a German bid where there really is no RBian communal ardour to speak of (yet).

FAQ 2, having just examined both US proposals:
Do the proposed venues and stops need to be (pre-)confirmed? I.e.: how many people do these EU gatherings typically attract that make reservations wise?

RB does not yet mean all that much to all that many beer places in the EU/DE - at least it is not automatically seen as a "thing" like in the US.

Can some former organisers share some experience here?
(Personal contacts? Sending out many email requests with loads of links and context?)

I would love to help putting something together for Berlin, I would however be limited to June to take part. (alternatively one i Barcelona in July while I am there for 2 weeks).

Shoot me a beermail Frank and lets see what can be done. Writing some of the brewers and local RBians would be easy to get things going. And yes setting arrangements with places will give a better gathering for everyone. We would generally see the red carpet being rolled out for us if we tell people we are coming. People in the beerscene I have met in Berlin are generally aware about RB.

/Jesper

As to your first question, which Ratebeerians were the organisers of earlier editions, I did the NL/BE year with Joes, Dutchdrebus and Martinus. We had help from some of the Belgian ratebeerians as well, mainly 77ships.

I did most of the organisation for the most recent London gathering.

You definitely need to arrange with places beforehand. As far ahead of time as possible, really. This is one of the areas where being a local is helpful. If you already have a relationship with brewers/bar managers, it’s easy request some ’special’ arrangements.

The European Gatherings generally attract at least 10-15, sometimes 20+.

Doing an ’open-source’ Gathering is certainly an option. In theory, you can do most (if not all) of the planning via email/phone. You just need to have some knowledge of the location so you can put together a worthwhile itinerary.

I would expect a summer gathering to be a bit more than a pub crawl. Plenty of folks on here organise overseas visits and pub crawls on a regular basis. A pub crawl is certainly a big part of the Weekend but you would typically expect a brewery visit or two and of course a suitable venue for a grand tasting on top of this. Without someone one the ground in the location city where would you hope to score a venue for a grand tasting ? You definitely need some local ground troops / input / contacts.

Originally posted by Leighton
Doing an ’open-source’ Gathering is certainly an option. In theory, you can do most (if not all) of the planning via email/phone. You just need to have some knowledge of the location so you can put together a worthwhile itinerary.

I think Germany would be great:) I like the idea of Cologne/Düsseldorf, or Cologne/Düsseldorf + Bamberg, but Berlin makes a lot of sense.

Originally posted by chriso

Originally posted by Leighton
Doing an ’open-source’ Gathering is certainly an option. In theory, you can do most (if not all) of the planning via email/phone. You just need to have some knowledge of the location so you can put together a worthwhile itinerary.

Getting a venue for the grand tasting can be problematic. The more so if there’s nobody local, with good local connections, involved. Finding someone with a big room that they’re prepared to provide at minimal, or no, cost to a bunch of strangers who are bringing along their own beer to drink is not easy.