Chattanooga Tweet-Up 2012 Dates!

The 2011 Chattanooga Tweet-Up was a huge success and before the day was over, folks were already encouraging me and Keith and Jerry and Matt and Wes to put together an event for next year. How could we say no? Almost everything went "as planned" for the 2011 event, but we acknowledge that a few things could have been done better, so at the very least, the 2012 event is our attempt to get everything "right"...as much as possible anyway.

For those that couldn't be there, maybe it's best to start at the beginning by answering a few questions:

What is a Cigar Tweet-Up?

Simply this:  a gathering of the online cigar community, as represented mostly by those who spend inordinate amounts of time on Twitter talking about their cigars, the issues surrounding those cigars, and eventually all other manner of topic. While we call it a "Tweet-Up" we won't discriminate against those who are part of the Facebook or Google+ cigar communities (we might even allow in MySpace cigar community folks...if there were such a thing!). We are inviting brand owners, company executives and area representatives, in addition to every cigar enthusiast who can make his or her way to Chattanooga for the weekend. It is not a "Sales Event" where the company reps will be competing with each other to sell you on their cigars. It is not a "cigar fest" type of experience where you tear tickets out of a book and race around a hall to collect your stogies. It's a time to kick back, light one up and hang out. Talk to old friends. Make some new ones. The main thing is to get to know people and strengthen the community we have.

Why are you doing this right after IPCPR?
Timing the event just a few weeks after many manufacturers debuted new cigars at the IPCPR show, we were able to be the debut "consumer" event for many sticks and we hope to expand on that in 2012.

Who will be there?

The 2011 event saw people come from nearly all corners of the country to attend, with a pretty even split among locals and out-of-towners.

While we can't give you a complete breakdown of details right now, we have secured "intentions to attend" from Jon Huber of Crowned Heads; Room 101's Matt Booth; brand owner of Emilio Cigars, Gary Griffith, and his area representative for our state, Nate McIntyre; Clint Aaron of 262 Cigars; Sean Williams of El Primer Mundo; and Bryan White of 13th Floor Cigars.

And we are working on getting plenty of other brand owners and reps in the house, as well. We will keep you up-to-date on who is attending as we go.

When and where can I buy tickets?
As with the 2011 event, there is no obligation to buy a thing. You can come to Chattanooga and hang out with all the fine folks at Burns for free. You can probably even weasel a cigar or two from the brand owners who are more than happy to give them out. But...you really should buy something while you're there...it's just the polite thing to do for the store that's putting this event on.

There will be "Event Packages" available to buy for a great price. One package will include a T-shirt, the Saturday evening liquor tasting, and a multi-pack of cigars. The other package will add on the Friday night baseball game to that. There may be other options as well. For 2011, the first package was $25, the second was $35; the multi-pack ended up being about 7 or 8 cigars, so that more than paid for itself right from the beginning.

We plan on opening the pre-sale for the event early in 2012, probably February or March. Burns Tobacconist will be selling the tickets through their new and improved website, scheduled to go live very soon.

So...consider this your "Save the Date" invitation...the Chattanooga Tweet-Up 2012 (#CHAtweetup2012 will be the official hashtag) will be held on...

Friday and Saturday, August 24 and 25