West Coast Pipe Show Dinner?

BTDT, you can skip it.

The dinner is good. Buffet style with 3 courses covered. Someone will give a keynote speech. And usually there is a tobacco exhibition. Look who the speaker is. If you know him it might be worth it. It's fun and adds to the experience.

Dave, I'm looking up the info now as I've never been, but if I remember rightly the Saturday night dinner generally has a key-note speaker and is a bit of an event... Didn't Brian Levine host the dinner last year and do a whole bit on the "Fast Five Final Questions"?
-- Pat

as i understand it the dinner is "hosted" by the show, with a different guest speaker each year. all of the ones that i can recall of the top of my head were well known in our hobby, and good choices for an entertaining and informative talk. the sixty bucks covers both the food (pretty decent as i remember) and the speaker. i only went to the dinner once, but had a great time. vegas is full of great places to eat though. i'd agree with iajaffe; see who the speaker is and then decide.

Brian is always entertaining, but he's going to have to add some show girls, fireworks and live animals to his act before I will shell out $60 again to see it. Dinner was your average defrosted hotel buffet fare, and each table of 8 got two bottles of low-end wine. That's not bad, if nobody else at your table drinks.

Personally, I'd shell out $60 again (and, in fact, will), for this year's Vegas Show and I don't even know who the dinner speaker is. As many of you who attend shows understand, the show dinners are always going to be a little pricey as they help support each show's operating costs. So, your support of the annual banquet dinner when you go to a show is not only for the food, but also to support the operating costs to put on these shows. I greatly value pipe shows as they are not money makers for those who put it on, but do enable the pipe hobbyists an opportunity to get together to share their passion as they buy/sell/trade.
I'd pay $60 to hear Brian Levine speak again. He was great last year. Very entertaining and witty and judging from the applause he received after his presentation, I think everyone there enjoyed it. And, unlike woodsroad (thank goodness his taste in tobacco is better than his judgement of food :wink, my wife and I greatly enjoyed our dinner and those around us at our table complimented the fare as well.
So, shaintiques, if you go to the West Coast Pipe Show, you will have a great time as Marty Pulvers and Steve O'Neil do an unbelievable job to make it fun for everyone. And if you do fork out the $60 for the dinner, sit at my table and I'll amuse you if the speaker doesn't. :wink:

I don't even know who the dinner speaker is.

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The WCPS's page lists Marty as this years speaker. 8O
http://www.westcoastpipeshow.com/

Guest speakers have been Brian, Steve, Neill Archer Roan, and Rick Newcombe ( that I was able to see ).

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Sounds fantastic. If I ended up sitting with Pipestud, I'd probably drive him insane with Royal Yacht worship.

I enjoyed the dinner at last year's show. For your money, you get a decent dinner with wine, entertaining speaker and conversation, and at last year's dinner there was a tobacco and whisky tasting hosted by Drew Estates--they had samples of pipe tobacco and cigars available, and several bottles of whisky. I made sure I got my $60 worth. ;-)