Tales of the Cocktail® returned to New Orleans for a successful 17th year, which spanned July 16 through July 21, 2019. Its second year under the new Tales of the Cocktail Foundation leadership team (Co-chairs Neal Bodenheimer and Gary Solomon Jr., President Caroline Rosen and CEO Jenny Butler), the world’s premiere cocktail festival exhibited significant year over year growth.
Attendance was up nearly 6,000 attendees from 2018, with this year’s attendees representing 38 countries worldwide. Over 100 new offsite events were added to Tales’ 2019 programming, bringing the total to over 400 events throughout the week-long conference. Over 50 hours of free Beyond the Bar programming was offered to the entire New Orleans community, regardless of whether or not participants were attendees of Tales of the Cocktail. Nearly 200 sponsors supported the non-profit’s efforts at this year’s festival.
Tales of the Cocktail introduced an additional 17 seminars this year, bringing the total to 78 individual education seminars — with more seminars on pressing issues from diversity to inclusion than Tales has ever offered before. 80% of seminars were at over 80%
capacity — and over 65% were above 90% capacity. Diversifying Tales’ education with specific Business, Culture, and Beyond the Bar streams governed by dedicated Education Committees will ensure continued growth of Tales’ education for years to come.
Furthermore, Tales of the Cocktail Foundation offered another $100,000 in grants through its Grants Program; bringing the total to $350,000 distributed to industry initiatives in the past two years.
Caroline Rosen, President of Tales of the Cocktail Foundation shared “We are blown away by this year’s growth for Tales of the Cocktail. The rise in attendance, programming and sponsorship are all pride points. However, the real growth constitutes the ways in which
this year’s programming has diversified. We instituted the most open to the public programming around health and wellness than we’ve ever offered before –for free — through our Beyond the Bar program. We’ve also seen the most seminar tracks dedicated to the industry’s pressing issues from diversity to inclusion, harassment and addiction, than ever before. We look forward to continued growth in this direction.”
