It all started with an idea from Reemski from I am obsessed with food who set up an Australian (and let’s make that NZ too) Foodbloggers Google Group to discuss the idea of an Australian Foodbloggers’ Conference modelled on the not so International one in the US.
I’ve also set up a group Google spreadsheet with food blog details so we can get an up-to-date breakdown of blogs. You can enter your details on this form. If you want admin access send me an email.
The past couple of years I’ve been approached by the Melbourne Food and Wine festival to do something. The first effort was the legacy media vs food bloggers debate that got just a little bit snarky.
Last year I was approached again in September by the MFWF but was in the UK so crazy busy I didn’t have the time to do anything. I emailed a few bloggers and a few ideas emerged.
This year I’ve got in early and hopefully in the next few weeks the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival will have a chat about a food bloggers segment for the 2010 festival held from 6-22 March.
Here are some of the issues being discussed and my thoughts:
Numbers: Maybe 50 to 100? More?
Cost? Can we keep the price from $50 to $99. Can we sidestep the hegemony of Ticketek and issue electronic tickets and receive payments by Paypal? If we make a profit I’d suggest lending the money via Kiva to a worthy third world business then we have capital for 2011 once we are repaid. Or do we do it all as part of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival infrastructure to keep it simple?
Sponsorship and promotion: Ad in Festival guide? Promotion via blogs. Sponsorship from medium-sized food and beverage businesses. Or do we want to approach a Fosters, Nestle, Coke? Maybe an enlightened marketing/ad/PR agency that wants to connect with food bloggers. Or a food magazine?
Exhibitors: Could we sell stalls to small producers to exhibit too?
Venue: I mooted it with the new Melbourne Convention Centre. It would be a brilliant venue and promotes small producers. It’s got all the state of the art AV etc.
Sessions: Over two days?
Night one: blogger food an wine pub quiz.
Night two: blogger dinner – Upstairs at Bar Lourinha? Take over Movida Next Door or Cumulus Inc?
Ideas for sessions:
- Food photography
- Food writing
- Styling food
- How to start a blog
- How to improve your blog/market your blog
- Technical workshops – html, php etc.
- SEO workshop
- Bring a famous overseas blogger over?
- Discussions on the politics of food and drink
Anyway, food bloggers the real debate is going on here. Potential sponsors or venues either leave a comment or send an email.
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I’d be reluctant to spend money to bring someone from overseas. I would be interested to hear from a variety of food writers, eg some academic/food studies types as well as some professionals.
And perhaps a session (or part of one) considering the ethics of accepting freebies, reviews, legal ramifications of slagging restaurants, etc.
Great idea, Zoe! Perhaps we could add recipe copyright issues to the same session.
Just filled out your form, Ed. I think the link above is the design version (i.e. it looked like I could edit the questions rather than just answer) – perhaps you could double check the link.
Zoe, I think you are right. I think it would be interesting to get several different ones to talk and then have a panel session perhaps.
Cindy, changed it thanks.
Copyright would be interesting and the status of creative commons in Australia. Also defamation perhaps although it is worth talking about how to handle it practically – without lawyers.
Some suggestions – Kerryn Goldsworthy (a friend) is a former English professor and now book reviewer who does some teaching with the food writing and gastronomy courses at Uni of Adelaide. She blogs as Pavlov’s Cat.
Debra Lee Brien is a university writing/creative industries person at Central Qld Uni in Rockhampton and is researching Australian women food writers. She’s very knowledgable and charming (I blogged about hearing her speak last year)
Marion who writes Hedonistic Hostess is an ex-ABC journo doing the Masters of Gastronomy and would no doubt know some excellent people through that. She’s signed up to the group which is how I found her blog.
There’s a philosophical gap in this — perhaps one theme for a session or for part of others is something along the lines of “Why blog? For whom? For what? Why bother?”
What about food tweeters?
All sound like good ideas although as I’ve posted on the forum I think it would be a good idea to confine the expertise to bloggers. I like Duncan’s spin and Melbournefoodie – twitterers or anyone who is social in food media perhaps.
Brilliant that there is so much chatter on this! Can’t wait to see where it goes.
I’m all for including tweeters (being a lover of it), but I worry that it may derail the ‘blog’ angle- and as it’s so new, maybe best to keep it direct, simple and streamlined with a blog focus? Just a thought- but perhaps I am being to narrow minded.
I guess one of the issues with a food bloggers conference is who you are trying to attract – a general food and wine festival audience, existing bloggers, wannabe bloggers? The topics listed for sessions above are pretty basic. I think to have a decent conference or festival you need a bunch of different kinds of events (workshops, presentations, roundtables, panels etc) and as well as nuts and bolts workshop-style stuff, you’d need (as Duncan suggested) more philosophical and broad-ranging panels/presentations (e.g. about the future of new media, the power of independent reviewing, the potential for activism, social networking elements, things like that).
It’s a great idea, will enjoy watching where you go with it.
Hi Ed, there’s some good ideas in this. I have a spreadsheet of over 250 Melbourne based blogs, of which over 80 are primarily about food (collected for my work on the local news sites). Would you like a copy (many entries have blogger names and emails)?
A crucial topic is how the industry is responding, eg restaurant owners closely following social media and commenting on reviews of their restaurants. What does it mean for them?
Like Duncan and Lisa, I’d like to see a focus on the practice of blogging, about defining a voice and targeting an audience.
I’d be happy to volunteer some time to discuss technical and methodological practices – metadata, information architecture, taxonomy, etc.
Hi Ed – if we can help on this in any way please let me know. We’ve done some work with MFWF already, and can promote through our website/newsletter. Plus we built an automatic, real time ticket system for the Bushfire Relief Appeal raffle which we could potentially adapt, it would not be difficult to do that. Cheers 4 now – Robyn