The European Beer Bloggers & Writers Conference (EBBC) is changing its focus, name, and URL and is becoming the Beer Now Conference with a spotlight on “marketing, tourism, and communications in today’s beer industry.” The 2017 conference will take place March 17-19 in Sheffield, the United Kingdom, running sequentially with BeerX.

We at Zephyr Conferences love the EBBC. It is our only conference that takes place outside North America. It is our only conference that regularly rotates countries. It is our conference with the most international mix of attendees. What is not to love about hanging out in our host cities of London, Leeds, Edinburgh, Dublin, Brussels, and Amsterdam with a bunch of enthusiasts who all passionately write about beer?

At the same time, the EBBC is our smallest conference, about 1/2 the size of the North American Beer Bloggers & Writers Conference, which itself is our smallest conference on the other side of the pond. And we understand this. There are simply a lot fewer active English-language beer blogs in Europe (166 Citizen Bloggers, by our count) than there are in North America (654). And most of those are located in the UK.

So we are making this change to Beer Now to ensure European beer bloggers and writers still have a conference to attend in 2017 and years from now.

The primary difference with Beer Now is we are expanding the content and thus expanding the audience. We will continue offering sessions on blogging, writing, and social media. But we will expand this to include other forms of marketing (search engine optimization, email marketing, digital advertising, etc) in addition to a focus on what is becoming a hot subject in the industry, beer tourism (events, tap room management, regional promotions, etc).

Frankly, we think everyone wins.

• Beer bloggers and writers in Europe still have their own conference with content applicable to them. You will have access to expanded content that will serve you in your current endeavors and help you expand your industry involvement if you so choose. You will have access to more conference sponsors and industry attendees than you now have with the EBBC.
• The beer industry (brewery marketing, communications, and tap room managers; brewery associations; tourism promotion agencies; beer tour operators; etc) has a new conference focused on a side of today’s beer industry (marketing, tourism, and communications) that is under-served in terms of industry training. Plus, sponsors and attendees of Beer Now will have access to the extremely influential beer bloggers and writers who attend.
• We at Zephyr Conferences have an expanded base of attendees and sponsors that should make the conference viable into the future.

The final kicker is the 2017 Beer Now Conference will take place March 17 – 19 in Sheffield, the United Kingdom in partnership with the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA) and in conjunction with their annual BeerX conference. Our attendees will have access to some BeerX events and BeerX attendees can add on participation at Beer Now.

Interested in Beer Now? Here is what you can do:

1. Register now. Registration is open and prices will gradually increase. Citizen Beer Bloggers & Published Beer Writers receive 50% off the regular rates. The Beer Now conference will be less expensive than the EBBC if you register now.
2. Follow @BeerNowCon on Twitter. We are just getting started.
3. Sign up to receive email alerts each time we post news on the Beer Now website. This is the best way to stay updated.
4. Most importantly, if you are a European beer blogger or writer, we hope you continue to see Beer Now as your conference. You are just sharing it a bit more.

We will see you in Sheffield in March!