2008 Ghent Summer Bar Tour

presented by Metromix.com

July 26th, 2008

SUMMERTIME SUCCESS! The 2008 Ghent Summer Bar Tour presented by Metromix.com set a new record for our summertime charity pub crawls on July 26th with nearly 550 participants traveling to 9 different participating locations. Through the gracious efforts of all of our 70 volunteers, this event raised $13,375 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Eastern Virginia! This popular semi-annual pub crawl started at 4:00 PM and journeyed down Colley Avenue, 21st Street, and the surrounding locale in the historic midtown Norfolk neighborhood of Ghent before ending at 9:00 PM with an awesome block party at The Boot that capped off the night and made this particular event one for the ages. A full list of participating locations, additional sponsors, and all the details on how this event all came together are highlighted below. All photos taken and submitted from the event have been posted in our online photo gallery. Thanks again to everyone who helped share the power of a wish - we'll see you all again at the Winter Bar Tour in February!

Event Summary

The Ghent Summer Bar Tour on July 26, 2008 was even hotter than the weather outside. Riding the success of our record-setting winter event, online registration swelled to over 400 participants prior to the day of the event - a good sign of things to come. With so many participants already signed up, a couple local radio stations took notice and conducted an interview with Joan Steele, Director of Development for the Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Eastern Virginia, about the event and her well-known non-profit employer.

The weather turned out great on the day of the event, allowing our registration booth to be set up outside The Taphouse Grill on 21st Street. Our new registration process and increase in volunteer help made sure that nobody had to wait very long in line to collect their registration bag and all of the goodies contained within. Nearly 150 additional participants arrived that day and paid their registration fee so that when our registration booth finally closed around 6:00 PM the total number of paid participants had grown to nearly 550 - a new summertime record! This big turnout put lots of smiles on all the faces of the volunteers and the bar staff - and even Ghent Bar Tours founder Scott Guirlinger, who was 500 miles away at his own wedding!

Soon after the start, the bars along Colley Avenue and 21st Street began to fill to the brim with lively participants looking to have some fun and help out the community. Many participants made it to each and every one of the nine stops on the tour, collecting a bingo/poker sticker on their bar tour map at each one. Our gracious photographer, Dana Marion, was busy all evening moving quickly between stops and snapping lots of photos of everyone thoroughly enjoying themselves.

2008 Ghent Summer Bar Tour Map

Our new ending location, The Boot got things rocking shortly before 9:00 PM with a band, DJ, beer truck, large tent, and general block party atmosphere. It was the perfect party scene to end another successful and contagiously fun charity pub crawl! Congratulations to all of the competition and raffle winners we announced at the ceremony - we hope you enjoy your prizes! Our 50/50 cash raffle winner scored super big with her winning ticket in our largest cash raffle total to date - $313!

And of course, there was a very large fundraising announcement still to be made. With posters held high we announced to the excited (and a bit tipsy) crowd that we had crushed last summer's fundraising total and had raised $13,375! All of these proceeds went directly to the Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Eastern Virginia in support of afflicted children in the local Hampton Roads area, including Jake, age 3. Thanks again to all of our participants who came out to support a great cause and for all of our sponsors and volunteers who helped make it happen.

As has now become tradition, we will once again traverse the streets of Ghent while drinking for charity next winter at the 2009 Ghent Winter Bar Tour on February 28th. The winter version has historically always been our largest event each year by far. Be sure to keep your eye on the website for more details as they become available.

Special thanks to all of our seventy fantastic volunteers that helped make this historic event possible, particularly those on our event planning committee: Josh Harris, Michael Burnette, and Lamont Maddox. We couldn't do it without you!

Any pictures we have from this event have been posted in our photo gallery. Special thanks to our photographer Dana Marion for taking so many great pictures during the event! If you have additional pictures from the event that you would like us to post so that your friends who didn't make it out can see just how much fun they missed, please send them as attachments to our and we will post them as soon as possible. Thanks!

Have your own thoughts or comments on the 2008 Ghent Summer Bar Tour? Submit a review and let us know what you liked about this tour and/or what you think we could improve at the next one.

Sponsor Bars & Businesses

A very big THANK YOU to all of the bars, restaurants, sponsors, and media partners that have agreed to be a part of the fun and festivities at the 2008 Ghent Summer Bar Tour.

Special Thanks

Special thanks as well to those businesses who were so kind to make donations of products and/or services in support of this charity event:

Donut Dinette 1917 Colley Ave	HomeBrewUSA 5802 E VaBeach Blvd #115	Hot House Yoga 738 W 22nd St #12
Papa John's 2001 Colley Ave	Walgreens 810 W 21st St	Harris Teeter 1300 Colonial Ave
Amalfi Ristorante 2010 Colley Ave	Mambo Room 2200 Colonial Ave	Hi-Ho Silver 316 W 21st St
Therapeutic Body Kneads 811 Brandon Ave	Things Remembered 701 Lynnhaven Pkwy (Virginia Beach)	Impressions In Print 5192 Cleveland St (Virginia Beach)

Fun & Games

We held several competitions during this tour for those that seek adventures beyond simple "wining and dining". Below are details on these games. Prizes were awarded for competition winners, some small ones along the way and other larger ones at our closing ceremony at The Boot.

If your place of business is interested in becoming the sole sponsor for one of these competitions, opportunities are still available. Simply visit our bar tour sponsor page, fill out the short commitment form, and be sure let us know what competition or other part of the bar tour you are interested in specifically sponsoring. Thanks - we hope to hear from you soon!

Texax Hold 'Em Tournament - Back by popular demand! Collect playing cards from SEVEN or more bar tour locations and have one of the five best poker hands (or one worst poker hand) to win great prizes! Volunteers at each location you visit will let you pick ONE playing card from a shuffled deck and will then place a corresponding sticker on your map. Bring your poker game card with you to the closing ceremony at the end location where competition winners will be announced and prizes awarded.
Bar Tour Bingo - Visit ALL participating locations on the bar tour and receive a prize! Volunteers at each location will place a sticker on your map indicating you visited that stop. Prizes can be picked up at the end location starting at 8:00 PM until supplies run out.
50/50 Cash Raffle - Win back your bar tab! The winner takes home half of the money from ticket sales (the other half goes to the Make-A-Wish Foundation). Raffle tickets will be sold at the registration booth as well as at the closing ceremony. Bring your tickets with you to the end location where the winner will be announced and cash prize awarded.
Prize Raffle - Win cool prizes! All participants are automatically entered to win non-cash raffle prizes. Just make sure to come to the end location and see if the number on your wristband matches the ones we pull from the raffle box.

Congratulations to all of our competition and raffle winners! We hope you enjoy your prizes and come back for more fun and games at our next tour.

Supported Organization

All proceeds from this event will go directly to the Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Eastern Virginia. This local Make-A-Wish chapter serves all of Hampton Roads, the Peninsula, Williamsburg, Emporia, Franklin, York, James City, Sussex, Isle of Wight, Surry, Greensville & Southampton counties and the Eastern Shore. The mission of the Make-A-Wish Foundation® is to grant wishes to children between the ages of 2½ and 18 who have life threatening medical conditions. The organization provides a bright moment of hope, strength, and joy for a child in what can sometimes be a dark routine of treatments, doctors and hospital visits. Many thanks to the Make-A-Wish staff for their support in planning this event as well as previous events.

Jake, as he is affectionately known by his family, loves Thomas the Tank Engine books and movies, which have inspired him to want to be a train conductor when he grows up. Going to Pennsylvania to the Island of Sodor was just the place for Jake to visit his favorite character. Jake and his family stayed at the Red Caboose Motel where all of the rooms were red cabooses lined up on a railroad track. The Lee E. Brenner Dining Car was a special treat for Jake and his family as they took a scenic ride through Southern Lancaster County as they dined. In addition to visiting with Thomas and his friends, Jake also met Sir Topham Hat and Cranky the Crane. At the end of each day, Jake was a tired little conductor who truly had his dream come true.