HomeMy WebLinkAboutVail Restaurant Assoc Mtg 073112Vail Restaurant Association / Taste of Vail Board 07/31/12 2:00 - 4:30pm — Held at the Sebastian Facilitator: Kris Moffat
Taste of Vail
Taste of Vail event c oncerns:
• Restaurants and chefs do not get enough PR
• Restaurants are not seeing increase in patronage during event b/c event programming overlaps evening hours
• Too many volunteers are taking space and eating product w/o paying
• Volunteer communication is low
• CSE: Trash has been a problem at Lamb tasting
• PR perspective: Food & Wine fests are old n ews. They will not get unpaid press.
• Attendees: Is it better to focus on deepening rela tionships with past attendees or finding new attendees?
Taste of Vail event improvement s uggestions:
• Taste of Vail is deemed a premiere event by the Vail Restaurant Ass ociation
• Define target market for event – top request in feedback
• Create 5 year plan. Ideally what will Taste of Vail look like? Attendees, revenue, sponsorship, etc.
• Focus on local chefs to bring revenue to local restaurants and restrict outside vendors/r estaurants/chefs
• End events earlier (noon to 4pm) to allow attendees to break/nap before evening hours, thus allowing attendees to fill the local restaurants (follow the lead of other successful Food & Wine events such as Aspen)
• Create Volunteer Appreciati on night to properly thank volunteers and lessen ‘free -loading’ at paid events
• Hire high -end high -experience food & wine event producer which comes with innovative ideas and volunteer management skills
• Create incentives for restaurants to register early, w hich fuels marketing and PR opportunities
• Give restaurants actual $ for participating
• PR perspective: Vail to create interest story that differentiates as one of 3 winter food & wine events (Tahoe, BC, Vail)
• Marketing perspective: Expand marketing to outside winter months. Cr eate stories or precursor events which may be marketed year round
• Host Taste of Vail chef webinars in advance to create storytelling and build interest
Vail Culinary Overview - Per request of CSE
Order of importance from Vail Restaurant Association:
• Taste of Vail – premiere
• Gourmet on the Gore
• Vail Restaurant Month – with improvements, suggested to compress to 10 days .
o Brian Nolan suggestion: Consider converting Vail Restaurant Month into Vail Valley Restaurant Month
• Ok toberfest – with improvements, suggested to c ompress into 1 weekend Vail Farmer’s Market : Association removed it from their list as they don’t consider it a culinary event
CSE RFP: Add li ne at top of permit application Please provide feedback from Vail’s Restaurant Association wi th permit