business spotlight
“I’d never wanted to sell – anything!” Gainey said.
“But I was craft-beer passionate, knowledgeable
about the product and I really like people.”
She didn’t particularly like what she called “all
that windshield time” – driving several thousand
miles a month. And she wanted to take the new
craft beer phenomenon to the Louisville market,
where she felt there was tremendous untapped
possibilities. So, she switched to Beer House
Distributors. And through that, she became
beverage director at one of her customers,
Buckhead Management Group, for whom she
began to create sponsored programs and events,
and even a craft beer menu app.
The leaps into the unknown were becoming
purposeful. A new pattern was developing:
creative marketing, customer relations, events
and, always, beer.
A chance meeting at the Louisville Beer Store in
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NuLu (in Louisville) put her together with Trevor
Cravens, president of Draft, the largest craft beer
magazine in North America. Draft became a
partner in some of Gainey’s events for Buckhead,
which led to a conversation about starting their
own craft beer festival.
“I was getting married at the time, and looking
at wedding venues,” Gainey said. “I looked at
Bowman Field and fell in love with the hangar
space – the environment, the architecture, the
history.”
Tailspin (“the name was part of my marketing
genius,” she laughed) was launched there in
February 2013, as a winter warmer festival, and
drew a sell-out crowd of 1,800 people. Not only
that, but the crowd came from as far away as
Anchorage, Alaska. “We had people that first
year from Seattle, Atlanta, New York, Miami,
Alabama,” Gainey said. “Only about 45 percent of
our attendees were local. I thought, ‘Something
is happening!’ ”
And it continued to happen. This year, there
will be about 4,000 attendees.
She formed HB Productions LLC, an events
coordinating business that is also involved in
The Keg Liquors Fest of Ale at the New Albany
Amphitheater; the Jeffersontown Summer Crafts
Beer Festival; and Cheers on the Pier in Owensboro.
Three years ago, she also helped start the
Bowman Aviation Heritage Festival, a static
airplane display show featuring vintage planes
and memorabilia – the history of flying.
“In two years, Bowman Field will be 100 years
old,” Gainey noted, “the oldest continually
operating commercial airport in the country.”
HB Productions LLC is another leap of faith
for Gainey. If it doesn’t work out, she says, “I can
always get another job.”