Cultural catalyst: BCB ushers in a new era of education
With a broadened education programme and an international board at the helm, Bar Convent Berlin is shaping the future of bartending – balancing technical mastery with cultural fluency, global dialogue, and purpose-driven programming.
Long known as the world’s leading bartenders’ trade fair, Bar Convent Berlin is evolving well beyond product showcases to become a multifaceted cultural hub. With BCB’s expanded programming – from heritage cocktails and insightful panels tackling DEI to interactive Gen Z career-planning seminars – it’s now shaping the next generation of bartenders to not only acquire sharp techniques but to be rooted in purpose.
Since its humble beginnings in 2007, BCB has been affectionately dubbed by bar professionals as the ‘bartenders’ Christmas’, which explains why bartenders made up nearly half of the attendees early on, before the rising numbers of wholesalers, brand reps, and trade buyers joined the audience. The Berlin flagship event has now become one of the largest and most beloved spirits industry rites of passage, with 2024 reaching a record attendance of more than 15,000 people from 87+ countries, spanning manufacturers, distributors, bar owners, mixologists and trade media.
Moreover, BCB has expanded its footprint outside of Berlin by hosting additional shows in Brooklyn, São Paulo, Singapore, and most recently, London. This international buildout further amplifies the legacy BCB hopes to cement as becoming the bar industry’s premier cultural and educational epicentre. While BCB’s earlier years, namely 2007-2014, focused on trade networking, product launches, bartending demos, and brand exposure, the organisation’s intention since 2019 has shifted to present deep dives on social issues, cultural storytelling, career tools, and industry innovation.
“Our primary goal at BCB Berlin has always been to curate education that provides a clear takeaway for the visitors: we want them to feel like they left a session having learnt something new – whether that’s something purely theoretical or a hard skill but also simply something inspiring,” says BCB brand ambassador and advisor for BCB Berlin, Singapore, and London, Damien Guichard. “It can be quite daunting at times to throw yourself into something new or simply find out what you like. This sounds straightforward, but unlike a lot of industries, bartenders don’t have access to a universal educational structure with exams, curricula, and metrics to measure their skills. As a consequence, people are often left to take one step forward and two steps backwards when it comes to learning something new and trusting the source.”
To meet the needs of the ever-evolving spirits industry and BCB’s meteoric rise in attendees, which now include cultural curators and trade buyers, alongside their established audience of global bar educators and emerging bar talent, the company has appointed Priyanka Blah as BCB’s new director of education. Blah joins a diverse group of esteemed education board members, including Guichard, Eleni Nikoloulia, and Maria Gorbatschova.
Blah’s new role couldn’t happen at a more kismet time in history.
The spirits industry has spent the last five years publicly championing education and inclusivity, yet many global bar professionals still face the challenge of having little to no real access to fundamental business knowledge or opportunities. However, Blah and her fellow BCB education board members hope to change the narrative of what true education looks like in a legacy institution in 2025 and beyond.
Elevating the experience: Blah on cultivating a culture of learning at BCB
“One thing that I’ve always been passionate about is education in spirits, drinking culture, and hospitality. So, while I dabbled in various aspects of the industry for a while, the one thing that stayed a common thread was how I focused on the educational aspect of it all,” says Blah. “So even during my time working for brands, I would pay extra attention to being able to conduct workshops or collaborate with people who had something meaningful to share and teach a room full of young bartenders.” This passion-filled journey organically led to Blah’s segue into her new role as BCB’s director of education.
Blah’s impressive industry insights and perceptive palate are a testament to her more than 12 years’ experience acquired from working in just about every facet of the spirits industry, from journalism to marketing strategy. The award-winning multi-hyphenate is also the founder and editor of The Dram Attic, an internationally acclaimed platform celebrating the personalities and experiences of the beverage world. Additionally, she is an Academy chair for both Asia’s 50 Best Bars and the World’s 50 Best Bars.
Before the onslaught of the pandemic, Blah attended BCB as a brand exhibitor. However, 2024 marked Blah’s first time attending BCB as a speaker, which gave her a newfound appreciation for what the organisation endeavours to achieve through a robust educational program. “Having had all three experiences, I think my opinion of BCB changed last year. It’s not that I had a bad opinion and a great opinion, but I think last year, after being part of the education and the main stage, I felt like BCB is trying to build something that is beyond just exhibiting brands. I think what they’re trying to create is something more holistic for the industry to benefit from in terms of learning, access, platforms, and networks.”
Keeping one eye on the future and the other on the craft
While BCB has attracted an international audience, the organisation still faces the challenge of overcoming a misconception that its show is more insular and Eurocentric than other spirit trade events.
“BCB Berlin’s founders were German, and the education was also very much focused on the German public. We still attach a lot of importance to the German community as they represent half our visitors, but we are also aware of the fact that BCB Berlin has become an international platform,” Guichard states. “Hence, the importance of having an international board of education. We meet regularly and bounce around ideas, and those exchanges are important to assess and gauge what might be relevant to one region specifically and globally. It’s fascinating to see what varies from one culture to the next.”
Blah agrees with Guichard’s latter sentiments, reiterating how the other BCB editions learn from each other. “London’s BCB happened for the first time this year, so we’ll have a lot of learnings from that. So, while yes, all the BCBs will look to the ‘OG’ BCB since 2007 for leadership and guidance, we’ll also look at them to see what they’re doing that we possibly haven’t thought of doing ourselves,” Blah adds. “The main team, RX Global, the people behind the organisation (BCB), are very open-minded, which is probably why you see someone like me sitting on the board as the director of education, right? It raised a lot of eyebrows, I’m sure, but they’re very progressive. They’re very eager to make the show better every year, and they’re doing it for the right reason. They’re also very keen that this shapes up to be exactly what we envision it to be.”
Furthermore, Blah aims to be the “bridge” between Europe, Asia and the US, providing a welcoming, inclusive space for professionals who have been historically left out of important industry conversations. “At the end of the day, we want to educate and inspire. We want people to share knowledge and experience – toeing the line between what is relevant in terms of takeaways and hard skills and sometimes issues that are so drastically specific that they might be a spark for someone who has been hesitating to start their own thing because it was too niche,” says Guichard.
While October’s BCB programming is under development (sorry, no spoilers yet), the board looks forward to “showcasing ideas and innovations,” Blah mentions and “anything that helps make the industry more efficient and propel it forward”, whether it’s how certain regional spirits are ethically produced to mental health awareness among bar staff to mentoring rising bar professionals on the importance of understanding the finances behind operating a business.
Blah adds: “I want people from all aspects of the industry to be able to tell us about their work and tell their story.”
Fostering global dialogue through education in a time of industry reinvention
Between tariffs and the overall instability of the global market, BCB’s purposeful mission to fortify their educational programming can help industry professionals offset the challenges of navigating these tumultuous times financially, mentally and creatively, while fostering community.
“People are deeply concerned about the future of our industry, but also the kind of world we are going to leave for future generations,” Guichard states. “For a very long time, a lot of topics focused on getting everyone to take our industry seriously and raising the bar, but now we have noticed a clear shift towards something else: the issues from outside our industries are very much relevant to us, so let’s urgently address them, now.”
Also, while there’s no shortage of information online to learn technical skills and cocktail specs, much intel has come at the sacrifice of accuracy and truth. “We should focus on experts’ opinions, reliable information, and things that are fact-checked in a time where just anyone can be an expert if they have the right number of followers. So, BCB as a platform can be there as a trusted source of information because we aim to curate quality education,” says Guichard.
Having an education board comprising professionals from four different nationalities further helps in building a reliable educational platform that addresses a diverse array of issues posing a threat to the sustainability of a career in spirits and hospitality. “Our industry is very much instinctive and empirical, which is why we are so resilient, but I would love to see a point where we manage to systemise our education so that younger generations find it easier to avoid making the mistakes we’ve made before,” says Guichard. “This resilience of our industry is also a coping mechanism, and I hope that we can reinstall a sense of trust that has been lost after a very challenging and unstable few years. International events such as BCB – and other shows – create a vacuum where like-minded people meet in person and feel energised and inspired after spending time together. The visitors create an energy and dynamic that makes it very exciting.”
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