What is The Fantastic Tavern?
The Fantastic Tavern is a meeting of minds online and at welcoming hostelries; a community of brand and agency digital planners & creatives who share insights, expertise, experience and beer. The TFT was founded in 2008 with the objective of creating a forum for sharing without any other intent (sales) and to bring an eclectic audience to bear on the content we discuss. Since then we have hosted events in London, New York and Las Vegas.
For each gathering, a theme is selected that we believe is relevant (to the digital zeitgeist) and will inspire both contributions and debate. The format of each gathering is dependent on the content but is always interactive (and often irreverent). Every theme could broadly fall into a broad category from Innovation, Effectiveness and Craft.
There are no real rules for inclusion in the Fantastic Tavern community as we’ve never needed to have any. However, there is a truth that we hold on to; this is a community for learning and sharing not selling. If attendees and members (we call them Taverners) want to get more specific or have a more opportunistic conversation, that can be arranged – for example, we have run one very intense ‘VIP’ dinner about Multi-variate Testing as a consequence of a more general ‘optimisation’ debate.
Who does The Fantastic Tavern appeal to?
- Digital creatives and practitioners including animators, designers, UX, copywriters etc
- Planners – both agency and client side
- Ebusiness Managers
- Ecommerce managers
- ECRM managers
- Multi-channel managers
- Specialist agency-types
- Interactive agency-types
- Start ups and entrepreneurs
- Anyone who is interested in what is hot and what is not in the digital space
Sound like fun? I can guarantee it is. If you would like to become part of The Fantastic Tavern please email michelle@thefantastictavern.co.uk and we will add you to our special list which means you are officially a taverner,
You can also follow our chats on twitter @TFTLondonNYC.
Don’t just take our word for it, here is what some of the taverners have to say:
“The Fantastic Tavern was so inclusive and welcoming I felt at home the moment I walked in. It showed the world runs on ideas and there’s still no shortage of people creating new ones and it made me realise what I don’t know but now want to know about creativity”
“Thanks for the opportunity to be inducted into the tavern Michelle. I found the whole thing really interesting and insightful. Matt and Anthony were both very good and I have been busy goggling trends this morning! Great people….great day”
“Thanks for a great day and thanks for the award. The day was both fun and interesting, and was a good chance to meet some like-minded people.“
“Just to say thanks and congratulations on yesterday’s event – awesome as always”
[...] came up with an idea for a creative ‘meeting of minds’ under the rather mystical name, The Fantastic Tavern. Like many good ideas, it sat dormant, waiting for the right moment to be [...]
[...] The Fantastic Tavern – The Twitter [...]
[...] The Fantastic Tavern returned two weeks ago (sorry for the delay in writing this but an adventure in Japan took presidence), reformatted and in a new location, The Leather Exchange. [...]
[...] so fantastic about The Fantastic Tavern then? Maybe it’s the Tavern – the last event saw us at The Roebuck – a fine old [...]
[...] The Fantastic Tavern ( @TFTLondonNYC ) returns. Once again your host, Matthew Bagwell, will steer you through an evening of beer, sausages and conversation, as we head to the answer to the question “hot or not? 2010 trends and their real potential” [...]
[...] The Fantastic Tavern returns to explore the emergence of Total Experience Design. By combining specialist skills in new ways, can the architects of digital experience now go wider and deeper than any other ‘traditional’ agency? [...]
[...] course, Vegas gives me an opportunity to take The Fantastic Tavern on tour again. Following on from recent TFTs in London and NYC, we’ll gather at the LUXOR [...]
[...] you would like a place at The Fantastic Tavern please email michelle@thefantastictavern.co.uk, places are limited so register [...]
[...] our next Fantastic Tavern I need three contributors. The brief is to create a cloud service concept, predicated on what cloud [...]
[...] like writing blogs about The Fantastic Tavern, especially when we have had a successful evening and there’s plenty of content to share. [...]
[...] The Fantastic Tavern’s first Lock Inn is a little like a normal TFT but will have some key differences; it’s an extended programme, running over the course of the day and we’ll spend much of it sober. Don’t get too downhearted, it’s still going to be fun packed, interactive (am I the only one struggling with the overuse of that word) and content rich. [...]
[...] it’s off to the Big Apple to host the next Fantastic Tavern at BUtterfield8 on Wednesday 11th August from [...]
[...] know when a Fantastic Tavern event has been a success when it’s about 6pm the following day when you’re sober enough to [...]
[...] Wednesday 3rd November we are taking The Fantastic Tavern to New York for an evening meeting of minds to share insights, expertise, experience and [...]
[...] in 2011, what matters now? And how does digital affect what matters? This is the theme of the first Fantastic Tavern of the year. We’ve found great location for the evening (see below), it’s a bigger [...]
[...] hosted our last Fantastic Tavern of the year in the Old Explorer behind Oxford Street and 80 taverners came out to [...]
[...] a year it has been for The Fantastic Tavern. We have hosted events in London, New York and Vegas as well as running our first Lock Inn (10 [...]
[...] night we held another Fantastic Tavern. We had full house (80+ people) so our room in Katzenjammers was certainly cosy but a good way to [...]
[...] thing about the Fantastic Tavern is that it’s a bit of a moving feast. I hatch an idea for an evening and then seek out [...]
[...] run by Matt Bagwell (@mattbagwell) and Michelle Flynn (@michelleflynn), and when I asked Michelle what it’s all about she suggested I come along and see. Last night I did just that and found the whole event quite [...]
[...] wanted to explore with The Fantastic Tavern what matters to us now in a world of always on connectivity, social software and changing values. [...]
[...] too much content for me to adequately cover in in a blog post. Despite the framing of both the TFT and the conversation having a digital focus, the conversation was far ranging and touched both [...]
[...] The Fantastic Tavern returns on Thursday 7th July to explore the emerging trend, Gamification. What does this silly word mean? Well, Seth Priebatsche, founder of SCVNGr (first brought to your attention at last year’s all-day TFT Lock Inn) talks about a layer over the world as we experience it – the Game Layer. This adds opportunities for playful interactions into everyday activities to increase connectivity and enragement. What started with FourSquare is now being heralds – by some at least – as the next big thing! [...]
[...] were moments at the start of this year when I wondered if I should continue to run The Fantastic Tavern. Believe it or not, this seemingly spontaneous and unstructured event takes a lot of planning and [...]
Leave your response!
Follow us on twitter @TFTLondon
Most Commented