Gearing up for a Festival
As we hopefully pull out of this wet spring, our work here will quickly shift to a quality of life event that we began about this time last year. It was an event that we were a little unsure about in a few ways, but while trying to recruit craft breweries downtown, we kept getting the same response, “Morristown may not have the market for this.” I guess many of them didn’t realize Morristown doesn’t have a “market” for 3 Wal-Marts, a mall, or most of the sit down restaurants we have, but we were a little undeterred as we know our “market” is much more region-al in approach than just a 5 mile radius.
Our origins of the Morristown Chamber Craft Beer Festival was born out of proving a market demand. We were very fortunate that 1907 Brewing Company chose Morristown just prior the event and could be featured there as well. Carlyle Properties participated in a big way as the presenting sponsor along with many other sponsors. Our projections of 1,200-1,500 attendees blew my expectations away as I was honestly wondering what we would do with the leftover product, which ended up being gone by 2:00. Estimates are that 5,000-6,000 people attended and while we did have a temporary libation shortage, we had volunteers go to Knoxville, Tri Cities and every grocery store in Morristown to satisfy the crowd.
We are in the planning phases of this year’s events and would like to offer sponsorship’s early as we quickly ran out last year. We will also be in much need of volunteers and promise a fun day and atmosphere while serving your community. Mark your calendars for September 26th. We understand that this is the Tennessee/Florida game day so we will have a game day tent and plenty of TVs on site. Being a TN fan, it is tough to say, but with only one win in 14 years, we think we will put on a much better show!