Atlanta Vape Meet, February 18th, 2012

[Blake_B]

Ok guys and girls, video and pictures are up on the site. - http://guidetovaping.com/2012/02/the-atlanta-vape-meet-coverage/

I want to personally thank all of you who attended, supported and put the meet together. For my first meet, it was awesome and I look forward to doing it again some day. My Wife and I had a blast and enjoyed meeting you all. vape on!!

 

[chatter97]

I have too many pictures to post them individually so here is the link to the album where they are all at. We are looking to have casual monthly meetings, but we will post that as soon as we all finish recuperating from this event.

 

[taxman32]

Guys and Dolls (that's you #47) great doesn't really describe the experience Saturday night.The comraderie and helpfulness of everyone attending was phenomenal. I learned more that night than I could ever hope to learn by just reading a forum. If anyone has the opportunity to attend a gathering such as this in your area, I encourage you to go.
The generosity exhibited by the vendors boggled the imagination. The pictures of the "juice bar" really doesn't do justice to the expanse of juices that were available. Even the bucket containing the tried but turned down was great. Sean finally found his cappuccino and Mike had his beef jerky.
I especially want to thank the vendors. Without their participation the event wouldn't have been near as successful as it turned out to be. I personally am going to email each and every contributor to thank them for their participation. Appreciation goes a long way in insuring future participation.
Finally thanks Balthezar for having the passing thought of having such a gathering and to all his minions for pulling it together and making it as successful as it was.

 

[chatter97]

I just wanted everyone to know who was responsible for this awesome event!!!



The Event Planners (from left to right):
MikenGA - Head counter and operations
Balthazar - The guy that had a crazy idea for us to have a vape and a beer.
s3anvap3s- joined us on our second meeting.
chatter - Planned and implemented the juice bar, worked with supporting vendors and with MikenGA worked with ECF threads.
Chaos - No longer on here due to a story too long to tell, brought us allot of the prizes and vendors as well provided MC Duties.

I also want to thank Sammy and Rabernet who were with MikenGA,Balthazar,Chaos and myself from the start but were unable to make it due to changing life circumstances.
Also, Dimitris with VP Pro live should get huge credit for making this event even bigger and coming out and putting us on the internet.

 

[MikenGA]

HOWDY FOLKS!! I don't know about the rest of ya, but I'm pooped! Had a GREAT DAY on Saturday, got home about 1:30am, then had to work all day Sunday. I slept late today, and am just beginning to stir with my first cup o java.

Chatter, my almost 60 year old eyes need a HUGE magnifying glass to see that pic!

...I also want to thank Sammy and Rabernet who..........were unable to make it due to changing life circumstances.

Let's also remember Nestoche (at our 1st meeting in December) and Zogem (at our 2nd meeting in January), who each contributed to the ENJOYMENT of our planning sessions, and to the success of the event.

The VAPE MEET this past Saturday was our 3rd monthly meeting, so the question is...where and when will we meet in March?

I'll be back in a bit, with closing thoughts and the final 'OFFICIAL HEAD COUNT'.

 

[chatter97]

Miken, click on the link in post 222, there is a much larger version there. Thank you for the ones I could not remember!!!! And if you want to watch the VP Live team recorded broadcast I am at about an hour and 18 minutes and earlier they had S3anvap3s!!!

I should change my forumn name to Chatter of the Awesome Beard!!!!

 

[MikenGA]

I HAD A GREAT TIME MEETING ALL YOU FOLKS ON SATURDAY! WHOA!! That was a HOOT!

I had the best seat in the house; passing out name badges/drawing numbers, and recognizing most of you AFTER you gave me your ECF Screen Name!
(Special THANK YOU goes to Taxman32, for relieving me long enough to 'relieve myself' , check out most of our vendors , check out the juice bar , and travel the outer areas calling winning numbers at the top of my lungs! )

• As far as I know, the inception of the idea that led to THIS event, occured on Thanksgiving night. I received a PM from Balthezar on November 24, 2011, with the following sentence: "Just a quick note, I will be starting a thread next week about a GA get together. I'll keep in touch about where I'm posting it."
  The following week, the thread appeared and was titled "Georgia Vapers Let's Get Together".
  
  Balthezar, I haven't told you this, but 'the devil in me' really enjoyed watching you squirm when so MANY folks responded to your post...and you never considered limiting the number of tables we might pull together somewhere. It was quickly obvious to all readers, that this thang was going to be far too much for one person to organize, and that's when 'the planning committee' materialized...seemingly out of thin air!

Ultimately, ALL of us on 'the planning committee' experienced several grand opportunities to 'squirm' along with Balthezar, and sometimes we were blindly taking the next step...simply because it WAS the only step to take.

As for ME, it was a PLEASURE getting to know each of the folks on the 'Planning Committee' (me, Chatter97, ChaosAffect, Balthezar, Sammy43, s3anvap3s, rabernet, Nestoche and Zogem). Each meeting was another great opportunity to spend time with GOOD FRIENDS and SPECIAL FOLKS...as well as learn more than I EVER thought I needed to know about everyone's P.E.N.I.S. (Personal Electronic Nicotine Inhalation System)!

Would I do it again?? Uhmmmmm...YEP, and YOU should, too!


HERE ARE THE NUMBERS:
As the 'Official Head Counter', I was predicting between 127 to 142 attendees at the event.

At the event:

• We had 119 'numbered' names participating in the DRAWING.

• We also had 5 additional folks attending that were either underage or did not want to participate in the drawing.

• THE 'OFFICIAL TOTAL HEAD COUNT' was 124!!!
  (We would have had more folks if it had NOT been raining, so my prognosticatin' was darn good!!

THANK YOU TO ALL THE VENDORS who attended!

THANK YOU TO ALL THE VENDORS who provided 45 generous donations for our drawing!

THANK YOU TO ALL THE VENDORS who provided hundreds of bottles of flavorful juices for our JUICE BAR!

THANK YOU TO THE FOLKS OF VapersPlace | VP Live Vape Team who helped publicize the event and streamed it LIVE over the internet. (I'm getting PM 'THANK YOUs' from folks who watched online while vaping right along with us, and it's the VAPETEAM that made it possible!)

THANK YOU TO OLDE TOWNE TAVERN & GRILL (Lawrenceville, GA) for not only allowing us to use their facilities, but for working with us to meet the demand, by expanding 'our space' throughout the entire upper floor! Our turnout was SO GOOD, we would have been extremely cramped if OTG had confined us to only our little 'enclosed room'.

• Funny...at the time we reserved the 'enclosed room', it was a significantly larger space than we thought would be necessary. WE WERE WRONG!!!
  
  And THANK YOU TO THE FOLKS POSTING PICTURES AND VIDEO OF THE EVENT, cuz it gives us ALL the opportunity to enjoy it again and again!

Last, but not least, THANK YOU TO ALL THE FOLKS WHO CAME! It was YOU who 'the Planning Committee' was working for, and we would have been a sad/sorry bunch if you had not supported us with your presence! YOU CAME THROUGH FOR US!

I believe most of us felt as though we were attending one big reunion of long lost friends/family, and each of us can probably say, "I am SO GLAD I WAS THERE!" That's how I feel about it.


GOOD JOB, EVERYBODY!


(AND...HAPPY BIRTHDAY to all the FEBRUARY Folks! )



*******************************************



Chatter97, when you get a chance, please post a list of all the vendors who attended, as well as those who provided donations. These are the folks who supported us 'above and beyond' our requests, and they are the same folks I want to support with my business!

(Also, by posting a list of these folks, it will give us ALL a chance to email them a short note of appreciation and THANKS! )

We also need to reimburse expenses, tally TOTAL donations generated for CASAA (including VapeTeam auctions), and post the numbers. When that step is completed, The 'Atlanta Vape Meet of February 18, 2011' will be history...and such a good, good story!

 

[pringles13]

Finally home from our weekend away. Had a blast at the vape meet!! It was awesome putting faces to names and getting to know people I hadn't actually interacted with on ECF. Thanks to the planning committee for putting this together. Looking forward to another meet!

 

[Brutus Buckeye]

Well after seeing all of the pics and videos, I'm officially bummed that I didn't come down. THAT is how you do a vape meet! Awesome job, hopefully we can get the Smoky Mtn Vapers Group going strong up here in Knoxville and try and do a large meet like this. Well done by all!

 

[NebulaBrot]

Just got home to my beautiful Sedona AZ - yes, from the Atlanta meet!!

It was a wonderful treat to meet ALL of you. I know I was not at my best and did not get to meet everyone but I certainly had a wonderful time coming to Atlanta and meeting all of you that I did get to talk to. Atlanta group puts on a fantastic meet. Thank you to ALL who helped together this awesome event.

I hope you all got to meet the We Are Vapers crew and the Vape Team! Now that you have had an opportunity to meet us, I hope you will continue to support and spread the word about WE ARE VAPERS documentary: We Are Vapers | An Exploration into the World of Harm Reduction | We Are Vapers and We Are Vapers -- IndieGoGo We are ALL in this together so I hope we all DO this TOGETHER!!

THANKS again Atlanta!! So very much worth the trip!

 

[chatter97]

Thanks for coming that distance. It was a fun evening for sure. Mike, ill post the list shortly with links. Already started thank you letters, that is why I added contact and email fields to our internal lists. I am still tired.

 

[chatter97]

As promised here is the lists of all our supporters. We greatly appreciate all their contributions, they definitely were a very large factor in the success of this meet. Please support them as they went above and beyond to help make this all happen. This might take multiple posts so please bear with me. Also, I am making their links clickable for easy navigation.

My decent pictures of the event if you want to see what the hubub was all about or want to relive some memories.

Attending Vendors

Vaperite
Donated several delicious organic flavors to our awesome juice bars and a Akston Hughes SVR Kit to the raffle.

Dark City Vapor
First vape meet-up for this vendor, coming from Black Mountain North Carolina. Donated some awesome Banana Pudding and Hyper Hillbilly as well as other flavors to our juice bar.

Clouds of Vapor
The BigBuyer himself all the way up from Florida. Donated juice to our bar and emptied chaos credit card with his awesome mods.

Stormy's Vapor Cellar

Epipe Mods
Donated a Molijnar mod to our raffle and debut a new Cell Phone battery mod at our event. Some of the finest pipe mods out there.

Ares Ecigs
Donated some great flavors to the juice bar.

Rock 'n' Roll Vapor
The guy in the big cowboy hat! Donated several disposables to the raffle and all flavors are rock and roll themed.


Also I want to include Heather's Heavenly Vapes on here. She did not have a table, but was on hand. This company just got started and many of her flavors debut at our meet. She generously donated a sample pack to our raffle and juice to the juice bar.

If I forgot any of our on-hand vendors please let me know. More to come as we have allot more sponsors we want to mention that were not present, but were amazingly generous.

 

[wv2win]

Just a thought, you might want to post a summary of the successful gathering with some pictures in the "general vaping" section of the forum so others can see how a Vape Meet is done. It also could be a "plug" for the We Are Vapers documentary and the importance of every vaper supporting CASAA.

 

[Blackross]

306 atty's with a drip were nice there, a bartender would be better!

 

[chatter97]

Just a thought, you might want to post a summary of the successful gathering with some pictures in the "general vaping" section of the forum so others can see how a Vape Meet is done. It also could be a "plug" for the We Are Vapers documentary and the importance of every vaper supporting CASAA.

Great idea, will get it up there, just have to figure out how to get some picts up there without them being too small. It seems I can only get thumbnails from picassa right now.

 

[chatter97]

My Baby, Now that is a bar!!!

Some picts of the juice bar. I was basically figuring out how to get them in a decent size, now I need to create a new thread in general and let everyone know how the ATL throws a vape meet!!!

 

[chatter97]

Created a new thread in general for a summary and pictures of the event.

 

[chatter97]

For those of you who had a great time at our big event, we are planning another group event! This is more of a beer and vape event and we will be discussing the groups fees, goals and agendas.

Date: March 24th 2012.
Time: 1:00 PM
Place: Olde Towne Grille Lawranceville

We have set a date for the next meet of the Atlanta Vapers. Please PM me or MikenGA if you plan on attending. This is our initial membership drive and we wish all to attend that want to be involved in a monthly group who meet up, have a beer and vape. We will have some group agenda items to work through, but mostly just having some fun. Come join us at http://www.atlvapers.com/ to discuss what you want out of the organization, meet our vendors and keep up to date.

 

[Balthezar]

Well, it has been an interesting experience, from start to finish. What started out as a small gathering of a few people turned out to be one huge event with over 120 people attending, and even live coverage from the Vape Team. When I first posted this in November, I never dreamed it would come to this, with over 1,000 posts in three different threads. We are starting a club, ATL Vapers, and we plan on having regular get-togethers (more like my original plan ) about once a month. We all made some new friends, got reacquainted with some old ones, got to meet some friends face to face that we only knew from forums and e-mails, got the chance to see and try equipment we may never have had a chance to try, and of course there was the now famous "Chatter Bar" (I just made that up, but I think it fits, after all the juice bar was Chatter97's idea) which was the busiest spot the whole evening, with literally hundreds of juices to sample.

One of the best things for me that happened maybe in part or all because of this, I got my Dad to come with me. He was a Pall Mall non filter smoker for about 60 years. I had given him my old 510 about a month earlier, that he would use some, but still used analogs some, too. At the meet he purchased an eGo Passthrough like mine from Vaporite, and I haven't seen him touch an analog since. I don't know if it was being there with other people that have switched, or finding all of the great flavors you can get (he spent quite a bit of time at the Chatter Bar ), but now he can sit in his favorite chair and watch his favorite shows, and vape away (non-smoking house, per Mom's rules, but she likes some of the smells from vaping, so that's ok LOL).

Anyway, now that it's over (or has it just begun?) I want to really thank everyone who has helped in any way with this fantastic journey, be it just suggestions, comments, or some going out of their way in support and some doing a lot of footwork, all of the vendors who came, and of course all of the people who took the time to come out to Olde Towne Tavern and Grill and join us. There are just too many people that have helped to name, but we know who they are (just read some of the posts here and elsewhere). Without all of your help, this probably would have been 50 or so people crammed into a bar somewhere, instead it became a very special and memorable experience, one that I hope we can duplicate (or even top) in the near future, maybe once or twice a year.

So, I hope that all of you can come to the next meet, you can find out more about it at the ATL Vapers forum. Hope to see you in there, and in here.

Thanks again One and All,

Balthezar