Brew Con London - A Home Brewing Conference and Expo

[Crastney]

I'm considering backing it, although it might already be too late, they only needed £5 and were at £4,300 yesterday, one day into their kickstarter. That's on a personal level as I'd like to attend.
As Chairman of The Home Brew Festival, we are in talks with London Brew Con, and hope to have some representation there. It's not a competition - Brew Con and THBF can coexist.

[Manngold]

I'm considering backing it, although it might already be too late, they only needed £5 and were at £4,300 yesterday, one day into their kickstarter. That's on a personal level as I'd like to attend.
As Chairman of The Home Brew Festival, we are in talks with London Brew Con, and hope to have some representation there. It's not a competition - Brew Con and THBF can coexist.

The beauty of Kickstart is that you can continue to back after they reach a goal, it just means the project will definitely go ahead. Most kickstarts also go on to add other rewards if additional money is gained, e.g. if we get £10k we will give you this as a bonus, etc.

[Jocky]

I'm considering backing it, although it might already be too late, they only needed £5 and were at £4,300 yesterday, one day into their kickstarter. That's on a personal level as I'd like to attend.
As Chairman of The Home Brew Festival, we are in talks with London Brew Con, and hope to have some representation there. It's not a competition - Brew Con and THBF can coexist.

If done right Brew Con could certainly help increase the attendance at THBF. A rising tide and all that...

[Jocky]

It's never too late to pledge until the kickstarter ends on August 3rd. While the aim is to make £5k they really want to raise as much as possible as that will help set the scale and scope of the event.

[Andy]

£5,236 pledged of £5,000 goal

Liftoff!

[bigrichlock]

Some interesting points of view here, one interesting comment was something (edit should say general view that has been voiced before) along the lines of why are the majority of the events held in the south - simply because there are more people willing to organize stuff, and why should the organizers of these events organize an event at the other end of the country when they live in the south? You organize events where you live and where you can travel to easily.

I would love Manchester or somewhere similar to hold a good sized comp be it a bjcp affair or not, you would find lots of people from the south jumping on the train and heading up for the weekend.

You could already say there is a north south divide, the south organise and the north does not. Although I believe this is about to change, and here is to a long weekend up north

its also worth noting Brewcon is being run as a commercial event which I think is vital, with any event like this it is vital the person at the helm has a clear vision, running something like this by comity is doomed to fail. Brewcon is not a new idea, it has been talked about for years but noting has happen because no one has put everything together to make it happen. Good luck to the organizer and I have paid my 15 quid.

I have heard great things about The Homebrew Festival, but it was never going to be Brewcon, the transport links, accommodation and event space just is not there.

Cheers

Rich

[Crastney]

Thanks Rich,
you're right The Homebrew Festival isn't Brew Con, but that's mostly down to the venue, and low membership. what Brew Con is starting out as, is where The Homebrew Festival originally wanted to be at some point in the future. We just need a lot more members, and a bigger better venue. We're working up to it from a small social festival in a field, whereas Brew Con are getting money behind it from the get go, and starting as something big. The person organising Brew Con has the necessary experience and contacts to make this work. Good luck to them. I'm sure the two events can coexist, and be beneficial to each other.

[bigrichlock]

Crastney,

Its going to be really interesting to see what Brewcon turns out to be, i have a feeling there will be a relatively small group (a few hundred) of dedicated homebrews there who will then be outnumbered by people interested in beer and home brewing as its very trendy to be at the moment. All it takes is publicity like being mentioned in the Time Out Mag as being one of the top 10 things to do that weekend and attendance will be huge, but maybe not many homebrewers. This is both a positive and negative of having the event in London but this is what will finance the whole thing and make it possible in my opinion.

I am positive the events can coexist as they will be wildly different, one is as it name sake a festival the other a convention, if memory serves i have had way more fun at festivals, not that i can always remember tho.

Cheers

Richard

[Haydnexport]

brewCON has moved the goalposts , it's one day now.... the sunday... most likely because the venue would be cheaper ? Anyway i'm requesting my pledge back as i've been mislead.

[DethApostle]

I got my ticket sorted yesterday. Is anyone else from here going to be attending?

DA

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

brewCON has moved the goalposts , it's one day now.... the sunday... most likely because the venue would be cheaper ? Anyway i'm requesting my pledge back as i've been mislead.

That seems a harsh response.

The reason given was that the venue had capacity for the entire attendance. No reason to split over 2 days at a smaller venue like was anticipated.

Makes it a lot easier for exhibitors and stands too

[demig]

Changes the dynamic though and I was a tad annoyed as well although I am going. I was planning to go on the Saturday and part of Sunday and then head home. By the time it finishes on the Sunday it’s not possible to get a train back to where I live which was part of my annoyance. It is of course the first year for it.

Some of the sessions look a little back to back though so it will be interesting to see if it has a rushed feel that a 2 day event may have had.

[DethApostle]

At least with it being on one day we avoid having to get a hotel on Saturday night... my hotel (Travel Lodge) on Sunday is £39... to stay Saturday too would have been an extra £130!!!

[richard080561]

I've brought my ticket and am OK with it being only one day but would have preferred Saturday

[Dennis King]

One of the men behind Brew con was on the radio today http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b097xzrt 16 mins in.