I know lots of you have been waiting for the publishing of our itinerary, so here goes.
First a little background. Those who were in Kildare’s for the start of last year’s Crawl know we are pushing the limits of any one establishment. I fully expect that we will double the size of our crowd this year (hitting 500 I believe) – and that means we’ve grown too big for any one pub.
The size of our group causes some other issues too. Group mobility is one concern. When we were just 30-50 people getting the group up and moving on to another establishment was easy. I just had to stand up and yell. That’s no longer possible. The group now has a mind of its own and nothing will get their attention. When the group gets settled in one place, momentum takes over, and it’s difficult to get them to move on. Around eleven or twelve o’clock people were getting pretty settled and not up for moving very far or fast. The result is that, despite actually having a larger group, participation in the establishments on the west end of town was down.
However, when I step back and look at this from afar, I don’t see issues, I see opportunity.
Since we were about to overwhelm Kildare’s anyway, let’s fix that concern by simply starting at two different spots. And since west end participation was down, let’s start that second group at the west end of town. Since people were settling in and not into getting up and moving as quickly as we have in the past, let’s just start earlier and schedule more time for each locale. Our mission now isn’t going to be to try to get everyone to the far west end of town. It’s going to be to take over the central part of town. So while we’ll start groups from both ends of town, the plan is for around midnight to just mingle in all the bars in the central downtown area (basically from Allen to Pugh).
So here’s the plan:
The eastern group will begin at the traditional Kildare’s location at 8 pm. At 9 pm, they will move onto the bar of their choice from the Lion’s Den, Bar Bleu, and/or the Gingerbread Man. At 10 pm, the choices are Rotelli, Adam’s Apple, Brewery, and/or the ShandyGaff. The 11 pm grouping is the Rathskellar, Mad Mex, Darkhorse, and/or the Phyrst. At midnight they are on their own (more coming later for a special midnight suggestion that we have).
The western delegation will start at Cafe 210 at 8 pm. At 9 pm they move on to Indigo. They can then choose between Pickles, Zeno’s and the Allen Street Grill at 10 pm. At 11, they join up with the eastern group at the Skellar, Mad Mex, Darkhorse, and/or the Phyrst. By midnight, all bets are off with this group too and they too are on their own.
Look for follow-up posts over the next few days detailing some special plans that we have for during the crawl.
Map Legend:
1 – Kildare’s
2 – Lion’s Den
3 – Bar Bleu
4 – Gingerbread Man
5 – Rotelli
6 – Adam’s Apple
7 – ShandyGaff
8 – Brewery
9 – Rathskellar
10 – Darkhorse
11 – Mad Mex
12 – Phyrst
13 – Pickles
14 – Zeno’s
15 – Allen Street Grill
16 – Indigao
17 – Cafe 210
