2013 AHA convention

I'm a member of a NJ home brewing club of about 50 members.
We want to attend the AHA in Pliladelphia next summer.
I have never been to the national event.... although my American Brown Ale thankfully made the trip in 2011
We want to participate as a club. Any help on this from seasoned AHA attendees would be great!! Thanks

Our brew club is located about 45 minutes NW of philly, we are also attending. I am not involved in that yet, but we do have a commitee working on it. PM me your email info, I will see if I can get our guys to send you what we have. I am taking vacation around it.

Start here: http://www.ahaconference.org/events/club-night/ and sign your club up.

Glad to hear it's in Philly next year. I certainly will try to go.

If you ever thought you might like to go, keep in mind that we probably won't see another Northeast location anytime soon. We'll be lucky to find it on the East coast at all in the next few years. For many, next year is a rare opportunity.

Speaking as a club officer who's club served at the Seattle one last year here's some advice.

1. You will *NOT* get volunteer passes. If you sign up to work club night and none of your members can *PURCHASE* a general pass, too bad. You won't be serving. If only one person can get a pass, guess what? He's working it alone.

2. The AHA only sold 1500 passes to the event - nationwide. They sold out in 2 days. This, in a region where we can't get venues big enough to hold "regular" beer festivals (http://www.washingtonbeerblog.com/washington-cask-beer-festival-time-now/)

3. To say the locals who couldn't attend were a bit upset... is an understatement. We're honestly thinking of doing our own AHA independent regional conference. WAHA already runs the largest pro-am competition in the area, it's just the next logical step.

luhrks said:

Speaking as a club officer who's club served at the Seattle one last year here's some advice.

1. You will *NOT* get volunteer passes. If you sign up to work club night and none of your members can *PURCHASE* a general pass, too bad. You won't be serving. If only one person can get a pass, guess what? He's working it alone.

2. The AHA only sold 1500 passes to the event - nationwide. They sold out in 2 days. This, in a region where we can't get venues big enough to hold "regular" beer festivals (http://www.washingtonbeerblog.com/washington-cask-beer-festival-time-now/)

3. To say the locals who couldn't attend were a bit upset... is an understatement. We're honestly thinking of doing our own AHA independent regional conference. WAHA already runs the largest pro-am competition in the area, it's just the next logical step.

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Thanks for the input, We are local to Philadelphia and that is the main reason we are attending.... It was a bit crazy buying tickets but all members were forewarned by us and the AHA too. At the end of the day (literally) everyone got a ticket who wanted to go. The idea of getting in for 'free' because our club wanted to participate in club night never crossed our minds and I'm a bit surprised that anyone thought that that was a possibility.
I agree that the entire ticket process was poorly designed, and club night this year seems to be suffering logistic issues, but it will be a great party and wonderful week we will not forget for some time to come.

I'm pretty sure everyone in my club that wanted to go was registered as well. I realize it can be frustrating if local people can't get registered and it would be even worse for the red headed step children of the Northeast to have the problem because it's probably not coming back anytime soon.

CBelli said:

The idea of getting in for 'free' because our club wanted to participate in club night never crossed our minds and I'm a bit surprised that anyone thought that that was a possibility.

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Um, we weren't trying to get into the conference for free. There were two nights that clubs were asked/expected to pour at the conference. You simply couldn't *WORK* the events without a ticket.

It's functionally the same thing as making the cook and wait staff pay out of pocket for the opportunity to cook/serve at a restaurant.

You don't put out a call for "volunteers" and then expect them to pay the full package price for being an attraction at your event.

luhrks said:

Um, we weren't trying to get into the conference for free. There were two nights that clubs were asked/expected to pour at the conference. You simply couldn't *WORK* the events without a ticket.

It's functionally the same thing as making the cook and wait staff pay out of pocket for the opportunity to cook/serve at a restaurant.

You don't put out a call for "volunteers" and then expect them to pay the full package price for being an attraction at your event.

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Well, true you "work" at the event for an hour, but that's about it and it's fun work. The events are still available to people who serve for their club for an hour. It's hardly the same thing as a cook and waiter who actually don't get to eat the food or participate with the party guests. You can leave your booth and go visit other booths, get some good beers, visit the vendors, chat up Charlie Papazian, grab some swag, get more good beers, pop into a seminar, etc.

It's not like you have a ball and chain around your ankle, and on "club night" it's a wild and crazy party with 1000 people. All of the clubs participating have tons of volunteers as a rule, all of whom bought a ticket to be in there. You can walk away and have another club member cover for you, so that everybody gets a chance to hang out.

The hospitality suite is set up so your club might work a whole hour, serving beer to cool people. But again, it's fun to do and even with the "work", it's still sold out.

In order to have volunteers ONLY work, they'd need to be designated to stay in one corner the whole time. And that sure doesn't happen!

Most attendees all volunteer in lots of ways.

Yooper said:

You can leave your booth and go visit other booths, get some good beers, visit the vendors, chat up Charlie Papazian, grab some swag, get more good beers, pop into a seminar, etc.

It's not like you have a ball and chain around your ankle, and on "club night" it's a wild and crazy party with 1000 people. All of the clubs participating have tons of volunteers as a rule, all of whom bought a ticket to be in there. You can walk away and have another club member cover for you, so that everybody gets a chance to hang out.

The hospitality suite is set up so your club might work a whole hour, serving beer to cool people. But again, it's fun to do and even with the "work", it's still sold out.

In order to have volunteers ONLY work, they'd need to be designated to stay in one corner the whole time. And that sure doesn't happen!

Most attendees all volunteer in lots of ways.

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Actually, the vendors and seminars were in different halls. Unless you had a full pass, you didn't get to do anything.

And actually yes, if your club poured at the event, there was about 3-6 hours of work before each event to check in your beer, check it out from the hotel, and depending on the complexity of your booth, set up and troubleshoot. You couldn't leave the beer unattended (no self-pours allowed) and at the end of each night about an hour to check your beer back into the coolers. Then there was tearing things down and packing out.

I think your perception is flawed. 95% of the entire event is participant run. While there are participants who just show up to absorb the seminars and drink the beer, a lot of attendees are there with their clubs. No one is forcing clubs to come pour their beer and in fact, the better word would be "invited".

However, despite the points you're bringing up that I don't necessarily agree with, I do see a middle ground of giving participating clubs a very short courtesy period of registration so that no one is left out of the club pride portions of the event. Yes, I'm saying that clubs local to the event should get some level of priority over people flying in from way out of state because while variable local beer scenes are one reason to move it around, giving attendees a bit of a travel break is too.
While it would be even more preferable to make sure beer donors and other volunteers can get registered, you do have the issue of fraud and broken promises to deal with. A much easier concept of "regional priority or courtesy" could be used.
How would it work? The first 3 hours of registration would only be open to people in the event state or any bordering state.

Bobby_M said:

However, despite the points you're bringing up that I don't necessarily agree with, I do see a middle ground of giving participating clubs a very short courtesy period of registration so that no one is left out of the club pride portions of the event. Yes, I'm saying that clubs local to the event should get some level of priority over people flying in from way out of state because while variable local beer scenes are one reason to move it around, giving attendees a bit of a travel break is too.
While it would be even more preferable to make sure beer donors and other volunteers can get registered, you do have the issue of fraud and broken promises to deal with. A much easier concept of "regional priority or courtesy" could be used.
How would it work? The first 3 hours of registration would only be open to people in the event state or any bordering state.

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Once again Bobby... I agree with you 100% hopefully WALES & GRHBA can set up close to each other.... what a party we are going to have!! Did you get my PM?

Bobby_M said:

I think your perception is flawed. 95% of the entire event is participant run.

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I guess that is what I was thinking. Volunteers judge beer (missing out on a day of seminars, PLUS pay for dinner and all of their costs as well). Volunteers register people, put up chairs, take down chairs, register the beer, haul the beer to the cool area, bring the beer back out for club night, etc. I think most participants volunteer in some way, big or small.

Serving beer with the club on Club Night is a blast, and I"ve done it a couple of times. I never once thought that it was "work" or should be treated as something special. If someone feels that it's work for hours and hours, then they certainly should not participate with their club and should just attend for fun.