A couple weeks ago, just after CocktailCamp took place, we sent out a survey to everyone who attended in order to get some feedback on what we did well, what could have been better, and what people want to see next year. After giving people some time to respond, the CocktailCamp team got together to go over the information we got.

The feedback was overwhelmingly positive, and for that we thank all of you. That being said, there was also some good feedback on the things that weren’t so great, some of which we knew, some we didn’t.

First and foremost, yes, CocktailCamp was a dry event. It didn’t set out to be but we dug into the OLCC rules far to late to make any of the drastic changes that would be needed to secure the event license that would allow us to serve drinks. We knew this was less than ideal but there was no way to do it without putting our generous hosts at New Deal at risk, which we weren’t willing to do. Expect a big difference here next year.

Something we had no idea about until the feedback came is was that our chairs sucked. We didn’t see them beforehand and honestly had no idea what we were getting. We’re really sorry about that, truly. The chairs will definitely be better next time. Ugh.

Other things we will be improving include a tightening up of the schedule, with less down time, better space to socialize away from the speakers (with a bar), and more food options on the premises (this last is a requirement for an OLCC event license, so you can definitely count on that one). We’ll also be exploring the possibility of different tracks for beginner/intermediate and advanced mixologists. We had a good variety of talks this year, but also a good mix of people attending and not everyone was interested in every presentation. We’ve also realized that we didn’t explain and guide the breakout sessions well enough and that resulted in a bit of confusion there.

Based on our own experiences at the event and the feedback we received, we’re calling this a successful first attempt. We learned a lot in the process and expect to learn a lot more in the next year leading up to CocktailCamp 2011.

If you didn’t take the survey, no problem — we’ll continue taking feedback for the next 12 months so please let us know your thoughts. The comment forms are open and you can always email us. We’ll be keeping this site updated with the latest news as it happens so watch this space for the latest (but we’re taking a couple months off, so be patient).