LIVE NOW! BerserkerDay NewbiePalooza 2021 - Nov 17, 2021 - WineBerserkers
FINAL DATE SET (November 17, 2021), OP UPDATED
With all the amazing work our BerserkerDay Council has done, with the myriad of interviews, surveys, and general data collection, we’ve come up with a way to make BerserkerDay even better…introducing ‘BerserkerDay NewbiePalooza’!!
Because BerserkerDay is so hectic, so crazy and jam-packed with activity from all sides, the Newbies can get overwhelmed and lost during the shuffle, particularly if they don’t really know how to manage forum interactions and the like. We typically feature around 15-25 Newbies each year, and try to highlight them with introductions prior to the big event, but there’s a better way!
We’ve set November 17th as BerserkerDay NewbiePalooza, a couple months prior to BerserkerDay, and ALL Newbies for the year will participate in that event instead, with the top 15 or so (depending on how much space we have) being invited to participate in BerserkerDay on Jan 27.
Because it’s a totally unique event, we are going blank slate on this, and can do it differently than BerserkerDay. With a smaller (30 participants is the goal number) group of participants, we can do features such as recorded Zoom interviews as introductions, rather than just paragraphs in posts. We’re also requiring these Newbies to send samples of their offer to TWO Berserkers, and we’re getting these tasters from the Council and Monopole Crü (will be a separate post with a Google Doc to ‘volunteer’ for this, and we will match up the tasters with the Newbies). These Berserkers become reviewers of sorts, but we’re not revealing their notes until BerserkerDay NewbiePalooza, to keep the ‘fun’ in the event, make people wait a bit. Those tasters/samplers can then contribute to the conversations during NewbiePalooza, making the threads more interactive with the larger community.
IDEALLY we’re looking at 5 Newbies from each of 6 categories:
- Napa
- Sonoma (these likely will be combined)
- Oregon
- Other areas (Michigan, New York, etc)
- Santa Barbara/Central Coast
- Food/Gourmet products
More info to come, but one request of those participating wineries from past BerserkerDays (and yes, I’ll be reaching out to some of you privately about this) - RECRUIT! Our best Newbies have come from referrals from trusted Berserkers, particularly those in the industry who know a certain friend who makes a great wine (or food product) and wants to share the BerserkerDay love with them.
Happy to take questions as we continue to flesh this out, but we’re all very excited about this. Having ‘seasoned’ Newbies on BerserkerDay will be much more manageable, and the timing will allow for the community to try these wines and comment accordingly during BerserkerDay, should these Newbies make the cut