So here is my short account of what I'm going to call the Seattle Cigar, Alcohol, Music, and Showgirl Expo. I got the VIP Ticket. It included a before party on Friday night, the expo, and an after party on Saturday night.
Friday night's event was held at Brouwer's Cafe. We were given our VIP bags which included 18 cigars, a bottle of Goose Ridge Wine, a Xicar cutter, and a few other insignificant items.
The food was very good. There was a vast selection of alcohol. The music was so loud it was hard to talk to anyone. The place needed to be better ventilated. The event was from 6pm to 2am. I had one cigar and left at 9pm. I felt like I had had 3 or 4 cigars. I have never had my clothes so saturated with smoke. The car still smells like smoke just from me driving for 45 minutes in it after the event.
On Saturday the VIPs got to go into the event at noon; an hour before everyone else. They had promised some special meet and greets for the VIPs, but that didn't materialize.
Rocky Patel was supposed to be there, but supposedly he waved off the event to go meet with the governor. It was an 8 hour function and the capital is an hour away. If he was actually in the state he could have done both, unless he was spending the entire day with the governor.
We were supposed to be able to meet the performers, but all but one of them showed up in time to set up and left right after they played.
Shorty Rossi was there. He seemed pretty cool. He was covering the A.J. Fernandez booth.
The only real advantage of being able to get in an hour early was they did not have enough places to sit in the smoking area and a lot of it was not under shade. So the VIPs grabbed up most of the seats before everyone else.
There were 5 or 6 cigar venders and 11 or 12 other venders at the expo. There was a lot of alcohol tasting available. The badge in the picture below was for free tasting. As you can see from my badge I tried 2 beers. I'm not much of a drinker. I would have loved a soda, and water was $2. I wish they had put that on my badge.
The music was very good, but one of my favorite bands which had been publicized when I bought the ticket had been removed by the time of the expo. Also, they had the volume louder than it should have been. It made it a little challenging to talk to people out in the smoking area while the music was playing. I enjoyed the music, but I was there to interact with other people not to attend a concert.
There was a nice selection of food. We were given tokens for 3 samples from the restaurants and 2 from the bakeries. Additional tokens were $3 each. I could have used more tokens.
They had "Cigar Girls" going around getting people their water, emptying ashtrays, and cutting and lighting cigars. Most, if not all, of the girls were from local strip clubs. It looked like most of them had never seen, let alone cut or lit, a cigar. It was funny watching a couple of them take a puff on a cigar.
They ended off the stage performances with a burlesque show.
The after party was held at the Vertigo Club. I liked this club. For the first time all weekend the music was at a level that you could talk to people. They had lots of free alcohol and appetizers from one of the better restaurants in town, but they ran out of water and there was not a single non alcoholic drink to be found. They had advertised for that event "Cigars hosted by JnJ Cigars, special blend "SODO" by Tatuaje" I somehow thought from that, that we would be getting a cigar at the event from JnJ Cigars. Probably a SODO. That never happened.
I compared my VIP bag with one expo attendees that had bought a regular ticket. I paid $150 more. I got 5 more cigars, the Xicar cutter, a bottle of wine, and I got to attend the before and after parties. He got a t-shirt that apparently the VIPs didn't get. The whole event seemed as much about the alcohol as cigars. For me the price of the VIP ticket was not worth it.
The expo promised many things that they later changed or didn't deliver. They over promised. When I bought my ticket it stated that we would get a cigar from each of the cigar companies they were listing. That was 25 including AVO. I also figured that with a VIP ticket I would be getting more cigars. In the last couple weeks they changed the wording to "a Selection of Fine Cigars upon entry." AVO was removed from the list. When we paid for our ticket we were promised 25 cigars, and the VIPs ended up getting 18 cigars and the regular attendees got 13. So that's $140 for 13 cigars, or $290 for 18 cigars. I guess the alcohol was supposed to make up for the difference. I just thinks it's poor form to have a "see what' included with your ticket" section on the expo website, then change what's included after people have bought tickets.
I did have a good time. It was their first year and it's hard to pull off an event like this. I expect in future years the website will be more accurate. Hopefully they will focus more on cigars and less on alcohol; or just call it the Seattle Cigar and Alcohol Expo. I met some very nice people. Many who I hope to see again. I would like to join the Vertigo Club. I handed out about 40 Cigar Geek business cards. Hopefully some of the people I talked to will join the site. I was talking to Justin Andrews, the Lou Rodriguez rep, about the site. I was telling him about our Geek Critiques. He gave me some Lou Rodriguez Edicion Premiere Churchills for Decembers Geek Critique.
In the picture of the 13 cigars the second from the left is a CAO MX2, the 5th one is a Don Abram, and the last one is a Room 101. In the picture of the VIP cigars the first one is an Illusione Cruzado.
