Bumping the thread in case there are any more referrals or recommendations for Newbies. Weāre finalizing our list now, starting to plan the series of āto doā Webinars for the Newbies so they are well educated on how this should work. Still aiming for Nov 3 so that our California winemakers wonāt be chest-deep in crush.
If you have winery/food companies you wish to recommend or refer, best is to email them (if you have a personal connection, which is definitely best) and copy me (todd at wineberserkers.com) or just send a PM to me, Iāll forward to the BerserkerDay Council, and weāll go from there.
Thank you for clarifying this! I read the original post three times and scrolled through the thread before I understood what was going on. Sounds like a great event! Thanks for hosting!
Ok, one more request for referrals/suggestions on participants for NewbiePalooza. I know most wineries are chin-deep in crush right now, but we canāt wait until the last minute to sign up participants, so itās best to get them early, as weāll be starting the instructional videos early next month, getting everyone up to speed, and we need to get the preview tastings/samples out at least 2 weeks before the event.
Please feel free to reach out to me with your suggestions on who might benefit, and itās best if you make the introduction yourself, and copy me (todd at wineberserkers.com) so I can take it from there, while including the BerserkerDay Council.
Excited to that this is noob friendly. Side requestā¦ for forum noobs Iād like to just put in a small 2 cents that I hope a glassware company like glasvin is going to participate. Iāve been holding off on better stemware this year and I was thinking Black Friday or BeserkerDay would be the time to pull the proverbial trigger.
Itās looking like we are heading into headwinds at every turn here, given the current state of all these wine producers at present. Crush, press, etc - the actual MAKING of wine is absolutely crazy right now, so it appears we will likely move this NewbiePalooza to January, with most of the same features, turning all of January into BerserkerDay
Happy to take more thoughts on the matter, but itās proving near impossible to get anyone to answer emails, agree to Webinars, etc., due to the hectic nature of the industry at the moment. In early January, we can do the NewbiePalooza intros, webinars, and those from Monopole Cru who signed up as ātastersā will get their samples ahead of time. Thatās where weāre strongly leaning at the moment.
I could very well be in the minority, but I feel like having NewbiePalooza just a few weeks away from Berserker Day somewhat of defeats the purpose of the event (i.e., really highlighting first-timers without the board favorites and just so many businesses competing with them). I might be alone in this, but I have a budget I at least try to stick to, so if I know Berserker Day is right around the corner, likely with some tried and true favorites, Iām reserving a large portion of my budget (and then some) for that with much less available to take a leap of faith on a newbie. Additionally, in January, I believe people are already starting to talk about BD and who is or may be participating, so NewbiePalooza likely wonāt have everyoneās full attention.
While I realize that certain realities mean that things canāt always be scheduled at the perfect time, I think that I would be more excited and spend much more at Newbie Palooza if it were at least a few months away from Berserker Day.
This is why I put it here, to get othersā thoughts, so thank you.
This was my initial concern, and my goal of having it well prior of BerserkerDay. The issues with actual winemaking are seemingly getting in the way, however, so the options are to move it further down, later November or early December, or extend the Newbie Intros aspect of past BerserkerDays by having NewbiePalooza intros and such prior to BerserkerDay, but then offers on BerserkerDay.
December might work, but itās getting too cold to ship many places, or perhaps not, as late January would be just as bad, and we certainly donāt see any issues with shipping BerserkerDay orders over the past 12 years or whatever it is (yes, lost count lol)
With regards to budget, having it during BerserkerDay would be bad, as youād be less likely to spend your budget on Newbies, I am reading. That said, if NewbiePalooza was, say, early December, and you bought from that, would your BerserkerDay budget be otherwise changed as well, one month later?
Looking for the perfect solution, if there is one!
Would it be too much work if it was a rolling offer. Do one per week? It would be a nice way to give a platform to new producers and new businesses? Once you got a few in the que it would be easy to just keep them rolling.
January would certainly make it harder for Newbies to stand out, and as Jordan noted, youād likely run into budget allocation considerations from many participants to both events. November would seem to be ideal if one is looking to build up hype ahead of BerserkerDay. It is reasonably close to BD to build up hype, but thereās some time to cool off both the credit cards and spousesā anger.
The other alternative would be to do it during the spring/summer, and I imagine winemakers are going to have more time to do webinars and interact with folks. Shipping seems to be almost a non-issue, at least as I see it. Most Berserkers donāt get their BerserkerDay orders for months and are ok with that. I donāt see how any other date would be different from that perspective.
Originally considered Spring/Summer but two factors: 1) Spring is pretty close to BerserkerDay, and the credit card bills come due, so itās tougher to get more spend at that time. 2) The transition from Spring to Summer is often fast, and shipping becomes problematic in a hurry
Perhaps I move it a bit later in November, give more time for the winemakers, but not so much that we run into Thanksgiving breaks and the like?
January is dead of winter and people donāt seem too bummed to wait until April/May few months for their wines safely. Personally I donāt think purchasing wine in say July to get them delivered October would be much different.
Mid-November is probably one of the best dates.
I like Robertās idea of spreading it out. One per week would likely take up an inordinate amount of the calendar up. But having a say Newbie Month (Newbie November?), where every couple of days thereās a handful of featured producers get the spotlight could be cool and logistically not that different that the proposed NewbiePalooza where thereās webinars and interaction with the Berserker community. Though that opens up the possibility where producers going towards the tail end of the month struggling more as excitement, and budgets die down.
I guess my initial question would be to ask how newbies did this past Berserker day. Perhaps the efforts made to isolate newbie offers this past year worked and they were quite happy with the results. If thatās the case, though it would be great to have a separate day for them, perhaps they mama perhaps they could simply be part of the actual day itself?
Itās a bummer that more of them were not able to get their stuff together to do this in November. Yes, it is harvest, is this harvest, but this is sales. This would help their bottom line. And I know that everyone is busy these days, but no one is too busy to make a sale ā¦
I prefer the idea of seeing all the offers together. As mentioned a few times, there is an internal budget for many. Later offers may suffer if the money is already spent on earlier offers