I am often asked "What is The Fantastic Tavern?" I have my way of describing it but thought I would ask the man who founded it (Matt Bagwell, EMC Consulting's Global Creative Director) to describe it in his own words. I also asked him who it should appeal to. Here is what he said:
“The Fantastic Tavern is a meeting of minds online and at welcoming hostelries; a community of brand and agency digital planners & creatives who share insights, expertise, experience and beer. The TFT was founded in 2008 with the objective of creating a forum for sharing without any other intent (sales) and to bring an eclectic audience to bear on the content we discuss. There have been at least eight well attended gatherings of the Fantastic Tavern in both London and New York.
For each gathering, a theme is selected that we believe is relevant (to the digital zeitgeist) and will inspire both contributions and debate. The format of each gathering is dependent on the content but is always interactive (and often irreverent). Every theme could broadly fall into a broad category from Innovation, Effectiveness and Craft.
There are no real rules for inclusion in the Fantastic Tavern community as we’ve never needed to have any. However, there is a truth that we hold on to; this is a community for learning and sharing not selling. If attendees and members (we call them Taverniers) want to get more specific or have a more opportunistic conversation, that can be arranged – for example, we have run one very intense ‘VIP’ dinner about Multi-variate Testing as a consequence of a more general ‘optimisation’ debate.
Who should does The Fantastic Tavern appeal to?
- Digital creatives and practitioners including animators, designers, UX, copywriters etc
- Planners – both agency and client side
- Ebusiness Managers
- Ecommerce managers
- ECRM managers
- Multi-channel managers
- Specialist agency-types
- Interactive agency-types
- Start ups and entrepreneurs
- Anyone who is interested in what is hot and what is not in the digital space“
Matt's blog has a lot more insight into previous events so definitely worth a look.
Sound like fun? I can guarantee it is. If you would like to become part of The Fantastic Tavern please email me on michelle.flynn@emc.com and I will add you to our special list.
You can also follow our chats on twitter @TFTLondonNYC and we have launched our site www.thefantastictavern.co.uk (although it is still in beta so work in progress)
Don’t just take our word for it, here is what some of the taverners have to say:
“The Fantastic Tavern was so inclusive and welcoming I felt at home the moment I walked in. It showed the world runs on ideas and there’s still no shortage of people creating new ones and it made me realise what I don't know but now want to know about creativity”
“Thanks for the opportunity to be inducted into the tavern Michelle. I found the whole thing really interesting and insightful. Matt and Anthony were both very good and I have been busy goggling trends this morning! Great people....great day”
“Thanks for a great day and thanks for the award. The day was both fun and interesting, and was a good chance to meet some like-minded people.“
“Just to say thanks and congratulations on yesterday’s event – awesome as always”