2014 NHC - tips & advice?

I'm stoked to hear that I'll finally be able to attend a NHC in 2014. I'm looking for some tips and advice from those that have gone before me.

1. When do tickets go on sale and should I sign up for an AHA membership? EDIT: (Doh, just saw that it's only open to AHA members)
2. Any specific events to see or avoid?

1. Sometime early next year and you will need an AHA membership to attend. Either pay now or pay later, but, by paying now, you'll get all the update emails about NHC 2014.

2. They're all normally pretty good, but we don't know the specifics yet.

Sorry for the late response to this, but I just recovered from the conference in June

1. Join the AHA now so you can receive emails regarding conference registration, hotel block opening, and competition registration (if you want to enter)
2. The AHA forum also has a lot of info around the time things open up so consider joining there. Membership is not required (but it is for the conference)
3. Be ready the second things open up and fight your way through the web page errors or busy signals on the phone. It is a stressful situation to say the least, but hopefully this year will be handled better (i.e. better handling of the enormous amount of traffic)

The conference itself is a blast. More beer than you can imagine, so pace yourself. Club night is definitely one of the best events all week. Outside of the conference events, there are brewery tours, the Brewing Network anniversary party, and dinners. The banquet caps off you week long drinking binge, with the awards ceremony immediately after.

Not done yet...after the banquet and awards, the hospitality suite remains open. They have even been known to bring the left over beer from the competition down for everyone to consume.

So to recap, plan for registrations, pace yourself (marathon, not a sprint), drink lots of water, and have fun mingling with what I've heard is going to be close to 4000 homebrewers this year!!

I can't wait!