Tenkara Summit 2012
Can you believe it’s only 19 days until the Tenkara Summit in Salt Lake City? I’m really looking forward to it. This time it’s going to be two days instead of just one, and this year’s event is being co-hosted by Tenkara USA and Tenkara Guides LLC.
I asked John Vetterli of Tenkara Guides LLC to take a break from his Summit preparations and answer a couple questions:
ASHLEY: John, how did you guys get involved in this year’s Summit?
JOHN: We started planning on hosting the 2012 Summit on the 5-hour drive back to Salt Lake City from the 2011 Summit. It started out as simple as “Hey, we could host something like this back home, what do you guys think?” I don’t recall which one of us started that conversation but one year later here we are, 2012 Tenkara Summit Salt Lake City Utah is three weeks away.
ASHLEY: How will 2012 be different than the 2011 Summit?
JOHN: We wanted to do things a differently for this Summit. We wanted people to fish! Planning this event is really just a matter of logistics. Rob [Worthing] spent several months on finding the right venue for day one, the caterers, and getting everything at a price that won’t break the bank. We are still finalizing the small details about workshops and lectures. There will be tons of info and hands-on learning and even more fishing. So bring your gear, you will need it! There will be lots of info about the literally hundreds of tenkara-perfect fishing locations from 5-minutes to 2-hours drive from the Day One venue site. The big scoop on the Summit is: “You will have fun and you will like it! Vee have vays of making you fish.”
ASHLEY: What is the estimated attendance for this year’s Summit? I understand it is sold out, but what will happen if someone just shows up and tries to attend?
JOHN: We planned all along for 300 people. What do ya know? We have 300 people! Day one venue is capped at 300 because of fire code occupancy requirements. There will be no extra space. Day 2 is more flexible for extra drop-ins. It is amazing, 2011 Summit had 140ish attendees. At first, 300 seemed like an unattainable number. April rolls around and we hit that number of RSVPs. Who’d a thunk it?
Stay tuned for a profile of the Tenkara Guides later this month, as well as some exciting announcements from LearnTenkara about what we’ll be doing at the Summit!
