2007 Ghent Winter Bar Tour

February 24th, 2007

HERE WE GO AGAIN! Join us at the 2007 Ghent Winter Bar Tour, our popular semi-annual pub crawl on February 24th down Colley Avenue, 21st Street, and the surrounding locale in the historic midtown Norfolk neighborhood of Ghent. The scheduled start for the tour is 4:00 PM at Zio's located at 1517 Colley Ave. The best news? It's all for a good cause. All proceeds from this event will benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Eastern Virginia. The latest details on the event are all highlighted below including who's participating, how to register, and what competitions are being held. Please note that registration is required and is available before the event through our registration page (discounts may apply). See you all on the 24th!

A resounding THANK YOU to all of the friendly local bar staffs, our 55 gracious volunteers, and 900 spirited participants that made the 2007 Ghent Winter Bar Tour a fantastcially fun event and also an extremely successful fundraiser for the Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Eastern Virginia! All in all, we were able to raise $14,000! Any and all pictures we've received to date have been posted in our online photo gallery. Thanks for coming out and we'll see you all again at the Summer Bar Tour on July 28th!

Event Summary

Wow. That one word pretty much sums up the 2007 Ghent Winter Bar Tour experience. Before the event even began, promotions and fanfare got the excitement going. Our billboard went up on February 6th on the corner of 35th Street and Colley Avenue. Then we ran several advertisements in the local Link daily newspaper. Then the press got ahold of the buzz we were making a week before the event. We were featured in spots on WAVY-TV and HamptonRoads.TV. The Link added some extra exposure with an article two days before the event. With all of this coverage, the word got out and before the event even began 500 participants had already registered!

Proclamation by Mayor of Norfolk

The big day finally arrived and with it came nice weather very favorable for wandering the streets of midtown Norfolk. The 2007 Ghent Winter Bar Tour kicked off a little before 4:00 on Saturday, February 24th as lines began to grow in both directions from our registration booth outside Zio's on Colley Avenue. The lines at the booth persisted for over two hours despite our volunteers efforts to work as fast as possible. The registration booth finally closed around 6:00 PM after processing nearly 900 participants - a new record by far! All proceeds from this event again benefitted our charity of choice, the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Eastern Virginia. Needless to say, they were very pleased with how everything turned out.

Zio's remained busy throughout the night even as participants headed on their way to discover the rest of our highlighted locations. Reports rolled in of bars temporarily closing their doors as they reached their capacity mandated by fire marshalls. People were everywhere that night in Ghent, all contributing to one of the largest crowds the area has ever seen. Many participants were able to make the trek to each and every one of the nine stops on the tour, collecting a punch on their game card at each one. Our traditional Texas Hold 'Em Tournament proved popular again with many participants who went bar to bar. Several other special competitions at the bars kept the crowd excited and awarded them with silly kid prizes they could enjoy with their friend throughout the night. Our gracious photographers, and , were busy all evening braving the crowds at each stop to snap photos of everyone enjoying themselves.

2007 Ghent Winter Bar Tour Map

The New Belmont was already filling up before 8:00 PM with participants eagerly anticipating our "closing ceremony" being held there. By the time we started our final proceedings, the bar had closed its doors because it could not physically handle any more people - it was already packed wall to wall! Congratulations to all of the competition and raffle winners we announced at the ceremony - we hope you enjoy your prizes! Abra McCollum took home $118 as the winner of our 50/50 raffle - hope you spent it "wisely"! A somewhat sloppy rendition of Happy Birthday was sung by the crowd to Jenna Sells, who also won 5 free pizzas from Papa John's to help sober up the 35 participants she had register under her name (by far the most of anyone on the tour).

Special thanks went out to all of the Make-A-Wish staff, board members, and wish parents in attendance that night. And an even bigger thanks went out to the 55 volunteers that helped make this event possible, particularly the 7 members of our overall event planning committee: Jenny Britt, Niki Dewey, Marcia Downing, Kelli Caras, Laura Watkins, Jack Martin, and Shawn Fagan. Finally it was time for our fundraising announcement... we raised $13,400! Wow! (Final fundraising totals after the event raised this number to $14,000.) All of these proceeds will go to the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Eastern Virginia and directly support children in the local Hampton Roads area, particularly the two fantastic wish kids, brothers Ashtin & Braden, who were sponsored by this event.

Shortly after the event, local news station WVEC featured the Ghent Winter Bar Tour on their 11:00 news. Link also followed up the event with a posting on the back of the daily newspaper the Monday after it all took place.

Naturally, with all of the success and popularity generated by our events in general and this one event in particular, we press on and will continue our semi-annual tradition of drinking for charity with the 2007 Ghent Summer Bar Tour on July 28th. Be sure to keep your eye on the website for more details as they become available.

Thanks once more to all of our great volunteers, particularly those on the planning committee, that helped make this event such a success. We really couldn't do it without you.

Any pictures we currently have from this event have been posted in our photo gallery. Special thanks to photographers and for taking so many great pictures of this 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 and we will post them as soon as possible. Thanks!

Have your own thoughts or comments on the 2007 Ghent Winter 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

THANK YOU to all of the NINE bars and restaurants that agreed to be a part of the fun and festivities at the 2007 Ghent Winter Bar Tour. Thanks go out as well to all of our gracious sponsors.

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:

Peter's Ten Top 748 Shirley Ave	Mid-Atlantic Coca Cola 2000 Monticello Ave	Tropical Smoothie 742 W 21st St
Walgreens 810 W 21st St	Papa John's 2001 Colley Ave	Pizza Hut 500 W 21st St
Therapeutic Body Kneads 811 Brandon Ave	McCormack & Puryear Jewelers 331 W 21st St	Virginia Beach Mariners Professional Soccer Team
	Things Remembered 701 Lynnhaven Pkwy (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" held shortly after 9:00 PM at The New Belmont.

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 punch your poker game card accordingly. Bring your poker game card with you to the "closing ceremony" at the end location where competition winners will be announced and prizes awarded. One special location will allow you to pick TWO cards - but you have to find out which one!
Bar Tour Bingo - Visit all NINE participating locations on the bar tour and receive a prize! Volunteers at each location will punch your Bar Tour Bingo card indicating you visited that stop. Prizes can be picked up at the "closing ceremony" location starting at 8:30 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 "closing ceremony" at 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 "closing ceremony" and wait to hear if the number on your wristband matches the ones we pull from the raffle box.
Bar Sports Decathlon - Play a different bar sport at each location to instantly win a fun prize right then and there! Pong Shot, Flip Cup, Darts, Putt-Putt, and many more games are scheduled to make appearances. Show off those skills!

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.

The proceeds from the 2007 Winter Bar Tour made wishes come true for brothers Ashtin & Braden. Ashtin's wish is to turn his bedroom into a "safe room" so that he can stay up all night playing without worrying his parents. Braden wishes to go see Sponge Bob Square Pants at Universal Studios in Orlando, FL. Thank you all for your part in Sharing the Power of a Wish! Pictures from Ashtin & Braden's wishes will be posted to their album in our online photo gallery once the wishes have been completed.