Bar Education Symposium
On August 18th, Prague’s Karlín district became a hub where energy, experience, and creativity of the bar world came together. The very first Bar Education Symposium attracted dozens of professionals and enthusiasts eager to draw inspiration from the leading voices of the European scene. The industrial space of Spojka Events turned into a true epicenter of ideas, proving that an educational format can be just as vibrant and captivating as a bar itself.
Behind the project are Jan Šebek and Vítězslav Cirok of the Bar Sense initiative. Their vision is clear – to elevate Czech mixology to a global level and create a platform not only for knowledge transfer but for community building. And that is exactly what they achieved with this first edition.
255 Minutes of Inspiration
The symposium’s theme, Art of Bars, Art of Creativity, ran through the entire program – from lectures to discussions. Instead of boring education, it was a series of masterclasses that combined craft with aesthetics, exploring new ways to look at hospitality.
The stage hosted personalities who are setting the pace for European bar culture today:
Peter Marcin & Sergey Tyukh (Mirror Bar, Bratislava) – opened the seminar block with Hospitality: Building Business with Human Faces, showing that the real success of a bar lies above all in human connection and authentic relationships with guests.
Krzystof Ciemiera & Dawid Stoch (Art, Katowice) – in their talk Creating a Coherent Concept: From Marketing to Menu, they demonstrated how to build a bar concept that stays consistent from visual identity all the way to the drinks list.
Adrián Michalčík (About Contrasts, Oslo) – the Slovak bartender based in Norway spoke on The Art of Bars, presenting his vision of how to merge aesthetics, creativity, and practicality when building a bar of your own.
Yunus Yildiz & Karel Varga (Svanen, Oslo) – shared the history and philosophy of Svanen, a bar created in a former pharmacy, while also introducing the basement concept D.G.Æ., which works as a creative incubator within Oslo’s bar scene.
Monica Berg (Tayēr + Elementary, London / Kyary, Barcelona) – in her presentation It’s a Number Game, she showed through three concrete examples how bar operators can significantly cut costs without sacrificing quality.
Luca Bruni (Depero Club, Rieti) – brought the theme BAR + ART = BART (Beyond Art Reality Transcends), blending bar craft with visual and performance art, opening new ways of presenting bar culture creatively.
Elvis Zeneli (The Clumsies, Athens) – closed the seminar block with an insider’s look at the creative process of the acclaimed Athens bar The Clumsies, sharing how signature cocktails and new ideas come to life.
More Than Just Lectures
The symposium wasn’t about sitting and listening. Panel discussions tackled issues resonating strongly within today’s bar community – from sustainability to ethics to the psychology of working behind the bar. The whole environment encouraged dialogue and experience-sharing, rather than one-way information flow.
As our colleagues at atbars.com put it – 255 minutes of pure inspiration, proving that the Czech scene is ready to grow and stand shoulder to shoulder with the best.
Why It Matters
Events like this are still far from common in our region. That’s why it’s refreshing that the Bar Education Symposium doesn’t rely only on big names, but on a vision to push the entire field forward. It’s a platform with the ambition to grow, inspire, and deliver impulses not only to bartenders, but to hoteliers, restaurateurs, and the entire hospitality community.
If the first edition was only a starting point, we have every reason to be excited about what comes next. And it’s already clear that thanks to initiatives like this, the Czech (and Slovak) bar scene is well on its way to playing a leading role in the Central European region.
You can already look forward to the next edition on August 17, 2026, and for more information we recommend following Bar Education Symposium on social media.
