Feaster is an event planning business specialized in large-scale, high-quality events. Please enjoy our interview with Adam Block, President of Feaster, to learn more about them.
What is your business called and what does it do?
Our company is called Feaster. It is a company that specializes in producing large-scale, high quality and enjoyable events based around “liquid-to-lips”, which is where brands showcase their products to their demographic by having them try them.
What made you want to do this work?
Although Feaster is a relatively new company, the events that are produced by it have been around for a while. Hopscotch Festival Vancouver is over a quarter-century old, with its humble beginnings in 1996 and several others being over 10–years old. I personally got involved with this line of work by producing my own, much smaller events in and around town in an attempt to raise money to make movies. I was acting at the time and wanted to create my own work. After producing several events, I realized that my talents were better suited to the business end of producing versus that of theatrics. So, after a while, I refocused my goals and produced more and more events. From there, someone who owned a mid-sized event saw what I was doing and invited me to work for him. From there, it continued to grow and now we have 8-10 annual events and several other projects going on at all times.
What problem did you want to solve with the business?
Liquid-to-lips is a highly effective way for manufacturers of alcoholic beverages (and food) to engage and market with new and existing customers. Luckily for those manufacturers, people enjoy sipping, trying and learning about new products. These two groups need to be connected for the equation to work and that is where we come in. We create a landscape that is attractive and enjoyable to guests while drawing in the desired demographics of our clients, the manufacturers. If the equation is x + y = z, wherein X is the manufacturer and Y is the customer and Z is the relationship between the two of them, we are just the + (plus sign).
Who are your clientele/demographics?
As explained above, we have two sets of customers. We have our attendees and our exhibitors. The demographic for each event differs as the person who is attending a $15 cocktail event is different from the person who buys a $150 whisky tasting ticket. But generally, our customers are 24-55 who enjoy one or several types of alcohol and enjoy learning about what they are consuming. Regarding exhibitors, a whisky manufacturer isn’t permitted at our craft beer festival nor are our amazing craft brewery partners able to showcase at our whisky festival. But we have a spectrum of events and between all of them, we do showcase all types of alcohol.
How does your business make money? How does it work?
Booth fees, Ticket Sales, Sponsorship
Where in Vancouver can we find your profession?
Feaster.co is presently being built, which will be an umbrella site for all our events and special experiences that we will offer. In the meantime, we use our individual event websites like vcbw.ca, punchbowlfest.com, Hopscotchfestival.com, thewhiskyglobal.com, thewhiskysmoke.com, harbesthaus.com, comegetfancy.com and we have marketing projects like thebeerbox.ca and winevikings.com
What is the best question a prospective customer could ask a member of your profession when comparing services? Give the answer as well.
Why should I spend my hard-earned money attending the events your company produces when there are so many other events I could go to?
It comes down to craftsmanship and although that word is usually associated with a product and not a service, like the ones we offer, it stands true. Feaster dissects every single inch of an event to find the value in it for our clients – guests and exhibitors alike. We go to bat to make sure every single aspect of our event is a positive one for them. If that means customer service, entertainment, value, experience, quality, price… we do it all to make the event the best possible version of itself that it can be. So when you spend your hard-earned money buying tickets from our company, you know that you are getting a quality product or service in this case; none of which can be matched by any other provider. At least not in this space.
What is the best part about what you do? What is the worst part?
BEST PART: After months and months of planning, organizing, debates, arguments and 10,000 emails, you get to walk into this wonderland of this event that you and your team produced. Thousands of people and infrastructure, coming together in this perfectly symbiotic situation for a short window of time. It’s a magical feeling.
WORST PART: If something can go wrong, it will. You have to plan out every single scenario and then once you do, something goes wrong and you realize there is a scenario you didn’t think of.
What is your favourite joke about your own profession?
Let’s have a meeting about a meeting. I feel like I have had more meetings than anyone in the history of meetings.
What are your social media channels?
Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Website
PAY IT FORWARD: What is another Vancouver business that you love?
