Pre-conference registration for this years Craft Brewers Conference has already exceeded last year’s total attendance. The 2003 conference in New Orleans drew a little less than 1,000 participants, while so far this year, registration has surpassed 1,000. Cindy Jones, Sales and Marketing Director for the Association of Brewers, the conference host, expects total attendance this year to be over 1,100. “This is my third conference and I feel it is the best we’ve offered in my experience,” said Jones. “The San Diego and resort location seems to have helped.” The conference will be held in San Diego at the Town and Country Resort, a sprawling conference center with five restaurants, spa facilities, four swimming pools and golf course. This is the first time ever the CBC has been held in a resort-type setting and one of the few times the conference has been held in a relatively warm climate.
In other CBC news, the Weihenstephan Symposium has been sold out. The brewery tours are also filling up, with one of the tours already sold out. And the World Beer Cup Banquet Dinner had 550 people signed up at press time, nearing the maximum capacity of 600. For more information on the conference, visit www.beertown.org