Short of being invited to host a tasting for a thhird party ( Distiller, Bottler, Hotel, Tour Company, Corporate or Private group) ther will always be risk of financial loss.

To me the things that might have helped this year have already been been stated; time of tastings and pre-sales and publicity with tour operators etc.

Someone said that sucess in anything is 90% in the preparation.

A local business or individual as partner could have been of value to all concerned. ( a tasting in local whisky shop (with discount to ticket holders) possible ? )

Please can twhisky return with some afforable whiskies and continue a tour round all of Scotland’s Distilleries plus some from around the world ( even England ) Six is a good number per tasting.

Are there enough twhisky members in areas to invite our two “Worhies” to hold tastings in person ?

SLAINTE

Looking like normal blokes is sort of our thing. For a start, sadly, that’s just what we look like. But one of the things we’re really keen to do is demonstrate that it’s not just a drink for high court judges and cravatted eccentrics. We’re going for relatable and approachable.

We did run a competition through the St Andrews golf blog (Andy Brown) though I’m aware there are others we could certainly have included.

Neither of us speaks Chinese, unfortunately… and there were surprisingly few Asian tourists in town. Most seemed to be American, Canadian, Dutch and German.

I think we have a consensus on the selling discounted tickets as we give out flyers on the day. That would have been sensible – though offering sample drams as we did it would have broken the law a little bit…

There was a prize on the second night – the 30 year-old – and while it wasn’t on the flyer, it was something we said to everyone we handed the flyer to. Again, this was something we coordinated too late.

Linked In is something we’ll definitely use next time.

The people who gave us the whisky, cheese, etc were all very supportive (and massively appreciated) – though I don’t know the extent of the internal promotion that went on. Every one of the local stores that helped us out carried flyers…

As for the start time, venue, whiskies, web details, etc – that was all on the flyer, on the website and the Eventbrite page.

Appreciate the pointers, Craig. Cheers for that.

0) Sorry to be so critical but your flyer is terrible. I’m assuming there was stuff on the back but if not, here’s what is wrong with it – though it looks lovely:
a) It tells you nothing about what whiskies are being tasted. Is it W&M Special? For £40? Beat it.
b) It tells me nothing about you. What makes you whisky experts? You look just like two normal blokes.
c) No website details, no Twitter details, no phone number or online booking details. Where is the town hall? (I know St Andrews and I know it’s easy to find but don’t assume that for others)
d) No details of what I’m getting for my £40.
e) The most basic error though: NO START TIME. For all you know people turned up earlier in the day.
f) Did you do a version in Chinese? Huge whisky drinkers and golf fans.

That flyer should have had details of the whiskies, lots of detail about you, quotes from credible references about how you are THE guys for whisky tasting. When designing a flyer assume that the person knows nothing and you have this little piece of A5 to tell them everything – Who, What, Where, When, Why.

1) The late approval really, really hosed you. This really needed four weeks – two minumum – to get a good run at selling out.
2) Pre-sale of tickets should have been essential, even perhaps an early bird discount. Even just selling the tix on the day instead of waiting for people on the night
3) You should have offered some tix as a competition to the local paper and also online to golf sites
4) Never any harm in inviting local bloggers on first night
5) The venue doesn’t look the best (a minor thing)
6) As Mike said, people will have planned in advance, so this should have been flagged up to the golf groups on LinkedIn and to secretary sites (”is your boss going to the Open, does he like whisky…”)
7) On the other hand whisky is under-appreciated in Scotland
8) Next time in your pre-event mingle, take a bottle out with you and let people sample a good dram. The more senses you engage the more people will want to be involved with your product (in this case, your event)
9) Keep one of the most expensive bottle/bottles as a competition prize. Ticket might have cost £40 but if I can win a £300 bottle that might help get me in.
10) I know Mike said six drams is too many but I disagree as that’s the number I use for the W&M/Jura tasting events and they get the 25-30 bods that they need OK.
11) I know they were all good whiskies on show – or I’m assuming so as you have good taste :-) – but a rare hook would have been handy too.
12) Did the people giving you whisky, cheese, water, glasses and so on promote it internally? Did you ask them to? “For anyone heading along to the golf…”

And cheers, Mike. That’s incredibly helpful. I suspect we’ll be following your advice pretty closely.

Neither would I venture to comment on the marketing/promotional/venue aspects of why this was a glorious, even heroic, failure which you’ve had the balls to go public on and not to ’spin’ it. Or wallow in self-pity. Or blame the punters. I often tell my students: “you only learn from your failures”.

But the first thing to say is that you did so much right, and you should be applauded for your enterprise and the lengths you went to in order to make it work. From the point of view of the distilleries, you’ve done some great promotional work at no real cost to them. If I was doing a corporate event, I’d get you guys along to host a tasting. You’re obviously good at the storytelling side of things, and you know your stuff.

The price was not an issue. There were plenty of people at the open who would not have blinked at a £60 price tag, let alone £40. What messed you up were two things that appear to be opposites but are just two sides of the same coin. The first is short attention span. The other is prior arrangements.

There are two main types of people at an event like this. The first are the people that are at a loose end in the evening and looking for things to do, but when the time comes, they’ll just do whatever’s right in front of them, or whatever’s convenient. If there’s a bar handy, or a nice place for dinner – normally they’ll just head there. For these guys, it’s not about the things they do, but the people they’re with. They’ll hang out for the craic, and don’t need to be entertained. If you get them where they are, or can grab them and walk them en masse into your event, then fine – otherwise, the next shiny thing that attracts their attention will lead them elsewhere.

The other type of people are the ones who like to have control over what they do. They don’t like the unexpected, and won’t make a decision on the spot. These people book stuff in advance. Way in advance. They might have happily coughed up for a whisky tasting if they were presented with the opportunity while booking their travel and accommodation – but they’re pretty sales resistant on the spur of the moment – and besides, they’ve already got things sorted out.

People fall between those two extremes on a spectrum, but to successfully market an event like this you have to accommodate one or the other (or both, if you’re clever). What you needed were people who were both available to make a decision, and able to stick with it till the end of the day once they had decided. Those people are rare.

Couple of things I’d suggest: first, I’d agree with “Dad” above – lower their sales resistance. I know you don’t sell whisky – but you should start. Even if you’re just taking orders on behalf of a retailer on the night and taking a cut. Get them in, give them a dram and then start the sales pitch.

Jez is right too – two hours is good. Six drams is too many to get through. Start later – once people have had dinner – and go with four.

If the distilleries won’t pay you to host their tasting events (they probably should, but that’s another story), I’d approach a brand, a shop or a magazine. Get them to pay for it – do a co-sponsored deal. A golfing magazine or similar might have worked in this case. You can do something well in advance in a golf magazine – and take bookings (and money) in advance.

Ultimately – what you did was great. All that time flyering, tweeting, blogging and evangelising on behalf of these whisky companies was priceless coverage at a premium event – and who knows what might come of it? I take it you put your website address on the flyer so people can find you. There were plenty of corporate events organisers floating about. You may have given them an idea – and don’t be surprised if someone gets in touch to put on a tasting for them.

The only downside, of course, is that you guys are out of pocket. That’s the real shame here. If you take my advice above, you should be able to make sure you cover costs before you even set off on the road to St Andrews.

The other shame is the fact that all those people missed out on what look to be some amazing whiskies. I have to say, I’m jealous of some of the stuff you’ve ended up with. I’m not so into the peaty malts, but I’m a real fan of Jura (hint hint) and I’d love to get to try that 30 year-old some day.

Hope this experience doesn’t put you off. If at first you don’t succeed… etc. Only – with a few lessons learned along the way. And I’m glad you enjoyed St Andrews. I met my wife there. It’s a very special place.

Presales would have really helped… but we had some difficulties with the licence that meant our dates were only confirmed a couple of days before we came up to St Andrews.

Still… We did get an adventure and a story out of it – and even saw a bit of the golf.

Beautiful town too…