2008 Ghent Winter Bar Tour

February 23rd, 2008

SUCCESS! The 2008 Ghent Winter Bar Tour lived up to some high expectations and became the most successful charity pub crawl in America on February 23rd. Over 900 participants traveled to 12 participating locations that were graciously manned by over 75 volunteers and through everyone's efforts, over $18,000 was raised for the Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Eastern Virginia. Our immensely popular semi-annual pub crawl journeyed down Colley Avenue, 21st Street, and the surrounding locale in the historic midtown Norfolk neighborhood of Ghent from 4:00 PM until 9:00 PM. 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 in July!

Event Summary

The Ghent Winter Bar Tour on February 23, 2008 was literally history in the making. Unlike previous bar tours in Ghent, very little promotional work was done for this event, but then again, very little was needed. With a large contingent of loyal returners and their help in spreading the word to their friends, our online registration swelled to over 750 participants prior to the day of the event, by far our largest pre-registration group yet. With so many participants already signed up, we starting generating some buzz in the press over our event and in addition to our usual placements in calendars and similar were fortunate enough to be interviewed live by LaSalle Blanks of WVEC 13NEWS during their noon telecast on Friday, February 22nd. That evening we got participants going with over 100 coming to collect their registration bags (and maybe a drink or two as well) at San Antonio Sams during our pre-registration early pickup.

Despite a small threat of rain earlier in the day, the skies cut us a break and dried up the streets before our registration booth outside of Zio's on Colley Ave opened shortly before 4:00 PM on Saturday. 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. Over 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 over 900 - a new Ghent Bar Tours record! This record turnout put lots of smiles on the faces of the staff representing our charity of choice, the Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Eastern Virginia who took home all proceeds at the end of the night.

2008 Ghent Winter Bar Tour Map

The cold weather slowed the crowd of participants a little but not much. Within an hour, all of the bars along Colley Avenue were slammed full and the wave of participants began to make its way towards 21st Street. New participating locations such as Imperio Inca and Plaza del Sol were excited to see the crowds and welcomed participants into their restaurants, many of whom had never visited before. Even with the extremely large crowd present, very few reports came in of bars having to limit the number of people entering their restaurant - perhaps we had finally found a way to spread the crowd out and keep it moving! Many participants made it to each and every one of the twelve stops on the tour, collecting a bingo/poker sticker on their bar tour map at each one. Our gracious photographer, , was busy all evening moving quickly between stops and snapping lots of photos of everyone thoroughly enjoying themselves (some maybe more than we would hope).

The New Belmont once again filled itself to the brim around 9:00 PM with participants eager to collect their game prizes, catch a glimpse of the closing ceremony, and experience the semi-controlled chaotic party that is the end of each bar tour. Congratulations to all of the competition and raffle winners we announced at the ceremony - we hope you enjoy your prizes! Our top poker prize winner took home a gift certificate for a $170 premium home brewing kit courtesy of HomeBrewUSA by having the first ever suited five-of-a-kind poker hand at any of our events (the best hand possible given the multiple decks being used). Other participants with seemingly impossible royal flushes received their pick of gift certificates for dance lessons, massages, groceries, and local restaurants. And our 50/50 cash raffle winner scored super big with his winning ticket #314795 in our largest cash raffle total to date - $230!

Finally, the moment we had been waiting months for had arrived - it was time for history to be made. With posters held high we brought the crowd to a fervor and made it be known that we had crushed last year's fundraising record and had surpassed all charity pub crawls to date in the process. The final total? $18,250! 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, including Hannah, age 5. Thanks again to all of our participants who came out to support a great cause.

As has now become tradition, we will once again traverse the streets of Ghent while drinking for charity this summer at the 2008 Ghent Summer Bar Tour on July 26th. The summer version tends to be a bit smaller with it being vacation season and all but it's absolutely just as much fun. Be sure to keep your eye on the website for more details as they become available.

Special thanks to all of our seventy-five fantastic volunteers that helped make this historic event possible, particularly those on our event planning committee: Kelli Caras, Shawn Fagan, Julie Miles, Sheryl Clark, and Jack Martin. 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 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 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 bars, restaurants, and sponsors that agreed to be a part of the fun and festivities at the 2008 Ghent Winter Bar Tour - we certainly could not have done any of this without you.

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	Mambo Room 2200 Colonial Ave
Papa John's 2001 Colley Ave	La Bella in Ghent 738 W 22nd St	Walgreens 810 W 21st St
Harris Teeter 1300 Colonial Ave	Amalfi Ristorante 2010 Colley Ave	Hi-Ho Silver 316 W 21st St
Moe's Southwest Grill 520-F W 21st St	Therapeutic Body Kneads 811 Brandon Ave	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.

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 New Belmont 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 New Belmont 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 New Belmont 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 New Belmont 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, especially our 50/50 cash raffle winner who took home $230 with his winning ticket #314795! 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 went 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.

Hannah is an adorable five year old who loves all the Disney Princesses, so it was natural for her to wish to go to Disney World where she could meet all of the Princesses in person. The family was picked up by a limousine in January 2008 and whisked off to Orlando where they stayed at Give Kids the World Village. This village was specially created only for wish kids and each family has their own private villa. The Disney characters come to the village to visit the children and there is an ice cream shop that has free ice cream all day long until midnight. This was a magical wish for Hannah and no one deserved it more. At the age of five she has already endured a heart transplant, which is now working as good as anyone’s. In fact, the cardiologist told Hannah’s mother at a recent check up that if he didn’t know Hannah had had a heart transplant, he would not be able to tell by listening to her heart. It was ticking just the way it should. This was music to everyone’s ears!