Organiser profile: Copenhagen Gin Festival

Jacob Rosengren is a gin enthusiast and the organiser of the first ever Copenhagen Gin Festival. We caught up with him at the event to hear more about how he got started.

How did the idea for the festival come about?

I looked at UK and Spain where they have a lot of gin festivals and thought, "Why not Copenhagen?" There are a lot of beer, cognac, whiskey, and rum festivals in Copenhagen, but no gin festivals.


So I figured, why not? I’ll try to find a spot; some venue to do it. And I found this place (Lokomotivværkstedet), because I knew them. It's one of the most suitable places in Copenhagen.


We have nearly 900 people here just today. Everyone's happy and there are no mad or drunk people. It’s a great vibe. People are creating the vibe themselves. I think people are the vibe.


The main idea was to get everyone to enjoy themselves, have a bit of a party, meet new people, and enjoy the gin and tonics. There a lot of new ones that are being released almost every day. We could have had a lot more gins here, to be honest, but we didn’t have enough space.

How did you get started with Billetto?

I’ve seen Billetto a lot of times before with a lot of huge venues. When I started planning the festival, it was a natural choice. It’s easy. I didn't have to sign anything before selling my tickets. I just added the event on the screen from my home office.


I’ve created the whole event by myself. Just me. People think that there’s a huge organisation behind it, but it’s only me. Me and Billetto.


The Billetto guys have been so nice and helpful. It’s easy. It's a smart system. That’s it.

What were your biggest challenges in organising the festival?

Not enough hands. I've organised the festival all by myself. That was the biggest hurdle: Too many hats.

How did you go about promoting the festival?

I did some promotion on Facebook, GoCard (postcards) and Billetto too.

What did you learn in the process that'll help you improve next year?

I've learned a lot of things while putting this festival together. I guess the main takeaways for the next one would be:

  1. Get more staff
  2. Place more trashcans and glass-washing stations around
  3. Longer and fewer sessions - we need to organise longer breaks between sessions too.

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Copenhagen Gin Festival