Dudley Beer Festival

The Dudley CAMRA website says: "The Summer Festival, had been held for several years in the grounds of the historic castle, however the folks who run the zoo now seem reluctant to let us use the venue.....ever."

Unless my memory fails me somewhat the DBF was held at the castle for 3 years, 4 max, so 'several' would appear to be a bit of an overstatement.

"The upshot is that we have been unable to find a suitable outdoor venue in Dudley and so we have not held a Summer Beer Festival recently."

I'd be interested to hear exactly which avenues have been explored here. Surely the Dudley area has no shortage of such venues?

Regards,

-- KEVIN MASLIN Waterway Photography Great Bridge, West Midlands, England. snipped-for-privacy@kevinmaslin.co.uk

For any beer festival the main problem is always finding a venue that allows prior access (so the beer can be stillaged) without asking for the full rent for the venue. Often even though you only want a side room for the beer they want to (over)charge for the whole venue.

The other problem is that many venues capable of taking a festival have some kind of restriction on who can sell alcoholic drinks. A typical example is the NIA - a rather good venue for a good size regional festival but the first thing the management point out is that their franchise food sales people have sole rights to the food sales and their caterer also has sole rights to sell alcoholic drinks "however anything else you want to sell at your festival is OK" Methinks the lady had lost the plot, hadn't a clue what a beer festival was or had no working brain cells.

The summer festival occurred because a local member happened to be working for the council and they sold the council on the concept. People move on and the contacts become more tenuous.

Having said all that I'm sure that if you have any ideas for venues the local branch would be happy to hear them. (Start from the wet blanket stance and things can only get better)

Thanks for the elightenment, Steve. I'll certainly give the venue some thought, although I could only make assessments on a 'looks likely' basis without knowing if they fit the required criteria.

I would assume that (although preferable) the venue wouldn't necessarily need to be within the confines of Dudley town centre as long as it fell within the Dudley Borough?

Regards,

-- KEVIN MASLIN Waterway Photography Great Bridge, West Midlands, England. snipped-for-privacy@kevinmaslin.co.uk

Simplest answer: contact the branch, they will welcome suggestions and probably encourage you to help in what ever way you can.

You never actually know what you know about things until you do them. In some cases people have found jobs, or better jobs, based on the experience they gained working on festivals.

"Kevin Maslin" wrote

Thanks for the elightenment, Steve. I'll certainly give the venue some thought, although I could only make assessments on a 'looks likely' basis without knowing if they fit the required criteria.

I understand at the time it was obvious the zoo trustees blocked the festival the branch were willing to consider venues in neighbouring Sandwell borough.