Best Dressed. Everyone secretly (or openly) wants to be acknowledged for their kick ass and original style. Whether its a compliment about your shoes, earrings or your whole ensemble…you always walk away feeling like a badass when someone gives you props. Well guess what…you have a chance to feel like even more of a badass at Wine Riot NYC. We're partnering up with Market Publique to highlight the best of the best when it comes to New York Style. Market Publique will be armed with a camera all night, taking pictures of some of the best outfits. After the event you can vote on who is the best dressed at Wine Riot and win $40 to splurge at Market Publique. Don't have tickets yet to show off your best duds? Like Second Glass and Market Publique on Facebook and comment/like the post about the contest. One lucky winner will be chose at random to win a pair of tickets to Opening Night! Throw on your best sling backs, dust off that blazer and get ready to Riot in style!

September is a month when you're makin' moves and takin’ names. You ditch the swim trunks in favor of fall gear and adopt a back-to-school, nose-to-the-grindstone, kick-ass work ethic. Not to mention ascend to the ranks of Spartan athletes, primed and ready for weekends of Olympian proportions. It’s what you’ve been training for all summer long, right? Your ultimate wine, beer and food triathlon kicks off Friday, September 23rd at Wine Riot New York Opening Night, where you sip and swirl your way to VIP status. Reap the glory of free Taza Chocolate and head to the lounge where you can travel the region of Spain without leaving New York, and even send postcards to your family and friends!

Next day, soak up some culture with NYC’s free-museum Saturdays. Hundreds of museums across the country are participating in this mind-expanding adventure, sponsored by the Smithsonian. You can do a second round of Wine Riot at Riot 2, or switch it up and do wine in the morning, museum at night. You might as well make your entire Saturday a crowning achievement with more wine, tattoos and photographic evidence of your epic triumph.

But your weekend barely stops there. Since you’re a pro, wake up Sunday morning and take on Brooklyn Beefsteak. We’re talking heaps of Grade A meat grilled to perfection, washed down with bottomless pints McSorleys ale. Come prepared to get your hands dirty: you won’t find a utensil in the place. To those Olympians who successfully conquer all three days: consider yourself an unofficial member of the Second Glass Bad-Ass Hall of Fame. Your next high-five's on us.

Last weekend Second Glass journeyed down to the Newport Wine Fest, a seriously swanky event pouring lots of the good stuff by the water’s edge.  But rather than sticking to the traditional method of pen-and-paper wine guides or resorting to mnemonic devices to remember their wines, Newport-ians upgraded their wine tasting game with some mobile technology. At the event some 128 tasters used the Second Glass Mobile App to write nearly 1,000 wine reviews for the more than 300 wines in attendance! The App allowed visitors to see what wines were being poured, rate what they were tasting, and remember their favorites. Best of all, these favorites will never be more than a touch away, saved forever in their own personal Second Glass vault.

However the friendly folks of Newport aren’t keeping their favorites a secret.  The App allows users to share their reviews with their Facebook friends and even see what their friends like!  So which wines made the biggest splash at Newport? Well, the New England Wines held down the fort and rep’d the hometown pride with a few highly rated Vidal Blanc’s. For the most part, the intense heat sent Newportians flocking to and favoring the white wines.  Nonetheless, some big reds came out on top including spicy picks from Mendoza and Napa Valley. Despite being famous for it’s mansions, Newport’s vibe was totally down-to-earth and was a super chill place to explore some new wines. I mean, where else can you spend a weekend sipping $9 table wine next to a $5.4 million yacht?

Second Glass has had quite the year! If you haven’t heard, we kicked off our first ever Wine Riot Tour by expanding from just Boston to shows in LA, Chicago, New York and DC! We have seen a ton of great response to Wine Riot all over the country. LA was very unique and loved to talk about us with several press mentions, Boston welcomed us home with open arms and a sell out and Chicago made us feel right at home and we sold out Saturday night! Our star player this year has been our new iPhone and mobile app.  The app helps attendees navigate what can be a daunting selection of wines and actually remember what it was they tried throughout the evening. This also allows us to track which wines were the most popular. These wines are highly reviewed and well liked by the majority of the crowd at Wine Riot and each cities top wines can be viewed by city  here. We are so excited about all that we have accomplished and what is coming up, stay tuned for future developments and other exciting news in the coming months. If you have any other questions or would like to sign up for Wine Riot or get on our Exhibitor Wine Riot Newsletter, contact the Wine Riot Liaison - Maureen [at] secondglass.com.

At our recent event, Muscadet, Shuck Yeah we wanted the focus to be on the delicious pairing of the crisp French wine Muscadet with oysters and New England style seafood. At Second Glass we also love all things ridiculously awesome. We hatched the plan to have an ice sculpture after seeing a mockup of one on Brookline Ice and Coal's website. We needed this. As the planning for the event started to kick up into high gear, and we began to understand the details of the ice sculpture, it became clear we needed more of a plan. What happens when you suddenly have 500lbs of melting ice you need to dispose of? We could easily have left it out on the street for the world to admire as it slowly sank back into earth OR we could make it someone else's problem. Not to be harsh, but it certainly would be nice for someone to take care of this for us. This is where Craigslist came into account. After events, people sometime post their 'disposable' items for free pickup, and this seemed like a fabulous plan. The posting went as follows: Lightly used 500 lbs ice sculpture (well by then it might be like 450 lbs). We are using this to serve oysters and look generally badass at an event but at 11pm on May 14th it will turn into a giant icy pumpkin. We COULD A. leave this on the street B. hack it up with an ice pick C. Sneak it into the New England Aquarium OR You could pick it up and throw an impromptu party with the most badass ice sculpture you have ever SEEN! You will look so shucking cool. Here are the things people will think of you. -you are a total baller -you have enough money to spend on totally stupid things -you are 10x sexier than normal -this party you throw will be the most epic party anyone has ever been to (by default) THE RULES

• You must pick this up between 10:30 and 11:00pm on Saturday May 14th at the Villa Victoria center for the Arts
• You must be ready and willing to have a fabulous time and send us pictures
• You must have a way to transport this, remember, it weighs a whole bunch and is made of ice.

Thanks so much! The photo below is a sample of a similar ice sculpture but our will be different and holding bottles of wine (I KNOW) So this is where it became the most fun. Almost immediately upon posting this, the responses began pouring in! I have enclosed a few of my favorite responses Sorry, I'm probably gonna be too hammered to use this... I'm going to be at this Wine Riot event that is being held really close by, although the timing sounds good so I might get a second wind and use the octopus to head up an impromptu conga line back to my place... via the commuter rail of course. I really like this one because little does this guy know he will be at the original event for the octopus. haha! Someone else started harassing me for this! Sorry if this seems desperate, but my girlfriend was VERY excited about this sculpture when I told her about it.  This may be too much to disclose, but I missed her birthday last year because I was in Iraq and really want to do something special this year.  I would be willing to pay $300, but only if it has the hectocotylus arm.  PLEASE let me know. It should be mentioned that the hectocotylus arm is a male octopus' sex organ.... and that this later turned out to be  a prank! The 'winner' as it were, was a group of guys throwing some sort of house party in Allston. So I live in a collective house/showspace in Allston. We have a huge live music/DJ event on this Saturday, and this would be INCREDIBLE to have in the house that night. We will have a ton of people there, a professional photographer, and would totally take awesome pictures for you. We have several cars and are totally capable of transporting it. We live at House (of 1,000 Smiles) in Allston. We don’t do facebooks for events, but here’s a description: Witch House, Ghost Drone, and Dark Wave+ night @ House (of 1000 Smiles), Live acts Journey to the Center of the Collon, Black Adonis, Ming Ming, and Negative Time. Plus DJs, Baltimoroder (Basstown/Heartthrob), El Poser (Cult/Harrum Scarrum), Punketta Dollie (Redtail), and 1000th Smile (House of 1000 Smiles). Plus, dubstep, techno, minimal, EBM, industrial, chill wave & more! Right now I’m just scrambling to find a car that I am 100%  sure is large enough to hold this. Our cars are all passenger cars of various sizes, and I’m concerned that even with the seats down, it may not fit. #win. These guys were rockstars showing up and taking the melting slippery beast off our hands and off to party the night away. Other responses kept pouring in and Second Glass staff found that their friends were seeing this post circulating at work. It was turning out to be a pretty good day. I've discussed this with my friends. We are more than willing to take this. And we will have a good time. Ideas have ranged from the most epic ice luge of all time... to taking it to a shooting range and ceremoniously destroying the icy cephalopod with various weapons on high-speed camera (don't ask why we have a high-speed camera). Either way, it'll be a good time. Do you have a number where we can reach you? We were already pretty attached to the octopus so seeing it shot to bits was less than ideal. This was a pretty good proposal, but without a car, we doubted their success. We need that sculpture: here is our plan Phase 1.  Bring 8ish people to your place Phase 2.  Use 6 of those people to carry the sculpture on a large stretcher (we will provide) to the nearest T stop Phase 3.  Attempt to get the Octopus onto the T Phase 4.  Use the 2 non-carrying people to document the attempt and the reactions of people around them. Phase 5.  Ride the T, with the Octopus, to the Summit Ave T stop. Phase 6.  See how far we can get the Octopus up Summit Ave. Phase 7.  Send you the photos as a token of gratitude. Alternate plan if there is a failure in Phase 3: Put the stretcher on skateboards and walk it to Brookline, making friends along the way. Please advise People were very happy to even have such a thing be possible! All I have to say is… BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Best Craigslist post EVER! Epic and well worded. Now that I got that out. I have no use for it and its more work than it’s worth. But thanks for the laugh… And this one I can't do this but thought I would tell you I think you are really something to be so funny and give away something for someone else to enjoy immensely.........Good fun to the lucky getter!!!!!!!!!!!!! When the sculpture was installed, the artist came with a huge crank capable of lifting it up and was very careful and professional about the whole thing. All this preparation and equipment made us nervous for our Allston Party guys, but the whole point was that this was now their task. They came prepared and pulled it off! They at least got it in their car and since we didn't see any headlines of "Student crushed by Ice Sculpture" everyone is probably safe! If you're out there octopus ice sculpture owners, send us pictures!

A bunch of people have been asking about the location swap for the Boston Wine Riot and we want to be 100% honest with all of you who do want to know more of the details, keep reading for a short version or longer version of the story!

The Short Version: Last October during Wine Riot at the Cyclorama, there was an incident where 100 people who bought tickets to the Saturday night Wine Riot were not allowed in by security because security claimed we had reached capacity. After refunding 100 people at the event, my team and I spent numerous days carefully going over every ticketing detail. Our verdict was that Second Glass did not oversell the event. In fact, we undersold it by 50 tickets. I have three definitive sources of information that point to a miscount at the door by the Cyclorama hired security company. Mistakes happen, I understand that, but it’s how you deal with them that counts.

That’s why Morgan and I reached out to Boston Center for the Arts (the Cyclorama’s parent organization) management to discuss the situation. To our surprise, when we met with BCA management they categorically dismissed our claims and refused to even look at the sources and information we had prepared. On top of that, I was told there was nothing that could have been done before, during or after the event to change the results. Further more, they did not give us solutions to ensure this would not happen again in the future. In short, the security company has an exclusive contract with the Cyclorama and what they say goes. End of story.

Incredibly frustrated, Morgan and I both agreed there was no way we would hold another Wine Riot at the Cyclorama. It was not fair to those of you who had to stand outside and wait, even with we a refund. The situation was completely unacceptable by our standards and we are doing everything in our power to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

After touring five US cities and looking at dozens of event spaces, we now only work with event teams that listen to our needs and value customer service. For that reason, we are changing the location of Wine Riot. The new venue we chose has been incredibly accommodating, helpful and overall, a pleasure to work with. The space is roughly the same size, attendance will not change and we will have the same amount of wine. We are choosing to work with an organization that will not leave our paying customers standing in the cold and is also a really cool event space with historical significance.

While the situation at the door was out of our hands, we do have the opportunity to work with different vendors that will treat us fairly and listen to our feedback. That is why we are moving locations. I welcome any feedback and again, apologize to those who were not let into the last Wine Riot.

For more details on the situation, continue reading, but I look forward to seeing you at Wine Riot.

The Longer Story

We signed a contract with the Boston Center for the Arts to rent out the Cyclorama space for two full days. The contract stated that we were allowed 1,100 attendees on Saturday night. The BCA does a bulk count of 100 staff and vendors leaving 1,000 attendees that we can sell tickets to. We had done two previous events with the BCA and had no problems with ticket count in the past.

Selling Tickets

We at Second Glass take extreme measures to guarantee we do not oversell the event. For this Wine Riot we used EventBrite to sell our tickets. They have a system of e-ticketing that has worked in the past but also fantastic tracking software that allows us to only sell a certain number of tickets. We set the number of tickets available and checked it religiously - multiple times per day as the event approached.

We even used EventBrite to book our press, comps, contest winners and the free session our volunteers get to attend. Nearly every single person was given an electronic ticket. The exceptions included a few people to whom we sold traditional paper tickets either at wine stores or events. There were fewer than 30 paper tickets sold for Saturday night and we recorded each ticket sold.

At the end of every single day in the week leading up to Wine Riot we counted the total number of tickets sold. On the day of the event, Morgan and I went over the math and recounted how many tickets we had sold. We determined that there were still about 100 tickets unsold. Not wanting to take any chances, we ended the online sales and prepared to sell 56 tickets at the door, leaving us a buffer of about 50 tickets.

The Headcount Problem Arises

About an hour into the event, the hired security team of the Boston Center for the Arts informed us that we were approaching capacity. Looking around, Wine Riot was kicking into full gear and we knew we had just moved hundreds of people quickly into the event. But there was one glitch; the scanners provided by EventBrite were only scanning 1 in every 3 tickets.

The scanners were a problem throughout the day and we knew going into Saturday night there might be a problem so we prepared a backup plan. We would collect every single person’s printed out e-ticket and for those without the paper print out, we could check them off a list (after checking a photo ID) on the EventBrite iPhone App.

We collected paper tickets and checked away but soon after the initial warning from security we were informed the event was at capacity. Knowing full well that we had undersold the event, this was a major problem and Morgan and I quickly decided what to do as a line of confused, paying customers formed outside.

Issuing Refunds

Morgan and I decided to refund everyone in line the full ticket price, mark their ticket, and if they chose to wait until someone left, let them in at no cost. What started with 10-20 people quickly grew to 80 and then 100. Morgan and I cleared the registers, maxed out the Second Glass debit card and emptied our personal bank accounts. All tolled we shelled out close to $5,000 cash in about an hour. We did this first, without knowing the exact cause of the headcount problem in effort to make sure you our customers were happy.

Collecting and Reconciling Data

While this was going on, I gave a headcount clicker to two members of the Second Glass team and told them to guesstimate the number of people in the Cyclorama. After a 15 minute sprint, they estimated between 800-850 people. Not wanting to upset the security guards any more than we already had, I decided that I would stand outside for the rest of the night with two of my team members, one of them is a trained bouncer. We waited until the last person entered on the “one in, one out” system and security confirmed we were at capacity of 1,000 people.

The three of us then began counting every person that left the building, individually, but reconciling every 15-20. This took two solid hours but we had a clicker and the number when we were finished was 881. That wasn’t too far off from our original count.

The second source was wristbands. We order a different color wristband for each session of Wine Riot and Saturday night was blue dinosaurs. After the show was over, I came back inside from counting attendees and Morgan showed me the box of wristbands. We had only ordered 1,000 and there were 49 wristbands left. We called the company on Monday and they assured us that they send exactly the number of bands ordered.

I asked to see the security team’s clickers and they read 1,102 people entered for the whole night. If this actually happened, how did we have 49 wristbands left when the box only contained 1,000?

Note: The wristband number does not match the clicker because I started counting when the last person entered and we were exactly at capacity. We had 75 people who were refunded, then waited in line and eventually entered and got wristbands. When the last of these people entered, I started counting the people coming out.

But the kicker is the printed e-ticket tally that took us three solid days to count. My team and I went through 2,000+ printed e-tickets that we collected over the weekend and organized the Saturday evening ones. We pulled down the data about the people we checked in via the iPhone App and compiled it all together.

This is how the numbers work, according to our records: 

716 Printed E-Tickets

83 Check-ins with EventBrite iPhone App

75 Refunded and re-entered

56 Door sales

13 Misc Sponsor tickets

---------------------------------------

943 total people entered Saturday night

That’s TOTAL! According to our records, we never didn’t even had 1,000 people all night. That is consistent with the wristbands (951 used - some people thought it was too tight so we gave them a different one), that is consistent with my door count of 881 being the “so called capacity” + 75 “one in, one outs,” = 956 which is +/- 13, entirely possible while trying to count hundreds of people leaving at once.

Plus, it’s consistent with the 966 tickets we sold to Saturday night, which senior EventBrite employees have confirmed is the accurate count (not everyone that buys a ticket shows up).

What Followed Mattered Most

I spent countless hours going over these numbers, recounting the tickets, and looking for any and every possible explanation for what happened. Mistakes happen and not wanting to accuse anyone of anything before talking through the situation, I emailed the Monday after Wine Riot and made to make an appointment with the BCA management. It took a few weeks to get the meeting date and time scheduled.

The meeting finally happened a few weeks after the incident and to Morgan and my surprise, they would not even read over the documents I brought showing my ticket numbers. Instead, I was told, very frankly, there was nothing I could have done before, during or after the event to show there was an error on their part. While we were not blamed, I was told repeatedly that the security “house count” is the only number they care about.

Since we had another date on hold with them, I asked how we could prevent this from happening in the future. I suggested that I might install a security camera and point it at the door so next time there would be no arguing over how many people entered.

This was shut down as soon as the words left my mouth. I was told, quite forcefully, that I would never be allowed to install or even setup a camera that focused on the door. (This is in direct conflict with their filming policy, which allows us to record video in the space.) I was shown absolutely no system employed by security for making sure the headcount was accurate. On top of that, the BCA has an exclusive contract with this security company, so we can’t even work with a different one (of the ten venues I have toured across the country, not a single venue has an exclusive security contract).

Morgan and I left the meeting beat down. Not only were we out $5,000 in cash but we also knew we couldn’t go back to the BCA again. We immediately started looking for new event spaces but this is not an easy task in Boston.

Boston is a city filled with 500 person spaces but few with a 1,000 person capacity. Also, we need to bring in our own wine and many spaces have an exclusive food and beverage supplier.

Most event spaces need to be booked 6-12 months in advance and we were behind so we had to push a week back from our usual, Patriot’s Day Weekend. We wanted to explain why we are switching locations for Wine Riot. We think the Cyclorama is a beautiful event space too, but leaving customers in the cold and not even being willing to talk about it is completely unacceptable. Again, the new location is roughly the same size as the Cyclorama, the attendance will not change and we will have the same amount of wine.

Nonetheless, these are just minor setbacks. We have a new location booked, the booths are almost sold out and tickets are moving! We can’t wait for Wine Riot Boston on April 22-23 in the South End!

We don't mean to toot our own horn but, Wine Riot LA was a HUGE success! With great wine vendors, amazing sponsors, and some kick ass caterers- it is safe to say all bases were covered when it comes to throwing our first, but not last Wine Riot in LA. The wine was flowing nonstop for the entire event: Dr. Loosen (Germany), Mionetto (Italy), Loire Valley Wines (France) were some of our international rockstar wineries having a blast: chatting, educating, and pouring their lovely libations. We are so pumped to have them continue on with us throughout the entire tour!

Crash Course: Riesling Rocks! by Dr. Loosen

Our totally awesome sponsors: Mutineer, Yelp, Pretzel Crisps, 826 LA rocked the house! Yelp had a killer Jenga game going on. The rules were easy: if you pulled the numbered piece out of the Jenga tower without it collapsing, you would win a prize associated with the number! For those who didn't? No matter, they still got some kickass free Yelp pins. Free Swag from Yelp! And the winners are... The mobile app was just about as popular as the wines at this event. We had everyone eager to rate their favorite wines and the wine vendors were so pumped to see if their wines were winning on our top ten list.

Incredible newcomer : C3 excited to see he made it on the top ten list!

Sweet Toothed: The LA crowd went crazy over our sweet treats! South African Shiraz, Jim Jar was one of our sweeter wines that everyone went gaga over.  The shear awesomeness of the Champagne, Lambrusco, and the sweet and savory brown butter and candied bacon flavored ice cream sandwiches from Cool Haus were a hit amongst everyone even those who don't have a sweet tooth. I heart Pies were dishing up their spicy chocolate mousse pie quicker than could be and being attacked by hungry-eyed rioters. Bellies were very satisfied by the end of the night.

What's a party without some dancing? The night ended strong when a dance party broke out after DJ Cassette started to play some swinging 50’s tunes. By the end of the night, she had everyone singing along to Little Richards, “Shout." It was the biggest dance party to date! And a perfect way to end the evening!

We were so impressed with how friendly  the LA crowd are, we had some freakin' lovely tweet ups from our guest and super awesome press from LA Weekly! Check out photos from Wine Riot LA. While we feel the LA love, we can't wait to see what's in store for Boston. Let the countdown to Boston begin!

Last weekend we co-sponsored the Green & Red Carpet Sip & Swap with the Swapaholics for their Los Angeles debut. It was awesome! We teamed up with Freixenet to pour sparkling wine as the attendees traded their like-new and gently worn dresses, denim, handbags, shoes & jewelry.  Everyone brought a bag of things to swap and then at the end of the night went home with a bag of new stuff to fill up their closets!

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