Puro Sabor in virtual first place

Puro Sabor was the tobacco industry's first major virtual event. It attracted 3500 enthusiastic participants. In May, the Cubans followed suit with their Habanos World Days.

Puro Sabor is the tobacco industry's first virtual event

The celebration of the ninth edition of the prestigious international tobacco festival „Puro Sabor“, has managed to gather more participants than in all previous editions combined. The big novelty this year: the event was held virtually and reached around 3500 participants from all over the world.

„We are here to offer you one of the best experiences in the cigar industry with the legends we have in Nicaragua. We are opening the doors of our factories and plantations in this new format and are delighted that premium cigar lovers from all over the world are attending Puro Sabor,“ explained Claudio Sgroi, President of the Nicaraguan Chamber of Tobacco (CNT).

Sgrio, who is also a Master Blender, was responsible for opening this edition of the festival last 15 March 2021, with the support of Light ‚em Up World, a digital platform headquartered in Europe.

Big names inspire the audience

This first session had nearly 100 live viewers on the Zoom and YouTube platforms, and the episode was viewed more than 350 times on YouTube. The second episode featured Juan Ignacio Martinez of Joya de Nicaragua Cigars, who explained how Nicaragua's premium cigar industry has grown at a dizzying pace to become number one in the world in terms of production. This episode was viewed by more than 474 people.

Nestor Andres Plasencia of Plasencia Cigars was responsible in the third episode for revealing the „ingredients“ used and the step-by-step process of producing Nicaraguan tobacco of unrivalled quality.

The fourth session, dedicated to blending and tasting, featured two special guests: Nicholas Perdomo III of Perdomo Cigars and Willy Herrera of Drew State Cigars, who explained the individual steps of blending, tasting and finishing and demonstrated how much a premium cigar depends on the expertise of the master blender and his highly developed palate.

Moderation of the event from Austria and Dubai

The four episodes, hosted by Reinhard Pohorec of Light ‚em Up World and Ra'ed Saqfelhait of The Leaf Master Dubai, allowed the audience, mainly from Europe and the United States, to meet and directly question the experts and producers of the most prestigious Nicaraguan brands.

The festival is just reaching the halfway point, the fifth of 11 chapters, and yet it has already reached record numbers in terms of reach: 3,653 people have visited the episodes so far, and many more have been reached via various social media channels and tuned in by replaying the best moments on Facebook and Instagram.

Reserve 13 May 2021 for Puro Sabor

The next episode will take place on Thursday 13 May 2021 and is dedicated to the „big“ small Nicaraguan cigar makers. Its protagonists will be Skip Martin from RoMa Craft Tobac and Karem Berger from Don Kiki Cigars (Estelí Cigar Factory SA). Starting with this episode, the schedule will be changed to favour viewers from other countries. The new schedule will be: 04:00 PM Managua / 06:00 PM Miami / 12:00 PM Vienna.

Episodes on topics such as major manufacturers, technology and innovation in the tobacco industry and marketing, among other interesting topics, will follow. Festival participants will have the opportunity to win great prizes, such as free tickets to the next local festival or commemorative boxes of premium cigars from the best Nicaraguan brands.

Resources on the topic

• Free registration for 13 May 2021

• Light ‚em Up World

• The Leaf Master Dubai (Instagram, no own website)

• Article about the Habanos World Days 2021

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