East Anglian Beer Festival

At Kingston we follow GBBF and price all beer in 20ps so the staff don't have to deal with 5ps. We do vary prices by gravity - basically a standard markup is applied and then "adjusted" for what could be perceived as a "fair" price for the strength. This does allow us to price milds and light bitters at a discount, which is something we want to do - CAMRA members will drink them anyway, but it's a way of marketing these styles to the uncommitted local drinker.

Having said that, it works for us, other pricing strategies will work for other people.

I thought CAMRA festivals generally had to offer refunds on unused tokens? At most festivals people tend to put them in the charity bucket on the way out.

That is what we do at Stockport as well. We always make a big point of pushing milds and ensuring they are sold at reasonable prices.

By the way, it's only two weeks off now, see:

Yes. We have used our "one price fits all" ever since the onset of the festival.We have looked long and hard at the outcome and came to the obvious conclusion that the odd 10 or 20 pence on a glass isn't going to affect anybody's choice! And having paid up front anyway with the advent of our tokens the customer simply has to pick the beer he wants to try.One fact that might surprise you all is that there is only a slight correlation between the ABV and what we paid. The way we sourced our selection meant we were able to get some quite strong ales relatively cheaply. When we looked at the unsold beers at the end of the festival they weren't the weaker ones at all, they were spread all over the range.

Can't see what's wrong with cash. It works well enough everywhere else ....and most people understand it.

John B

True. Not to offer refunds would be a rip-off.

That's fine, so long as a refund is available if wanted.

John B (who proposed the motion many years ago regarding refunds on tokens)

But not four weeks later for a block of "tokens"[1] totalling 40-odd quid. Refunds on the day or possibly even the following day.

Cash is fine but it's time consuming to give change.We ran our first few festivals at £1 a half.Believe it or not we ran out of £1 coins on occasion! Tokens can cope with increased costs of course.As elswhere in this group I am firmly convinced that differential pricing is a waste of time and effort.

Someone's got a nerve.

John B

Or to queue for tokens.

Do you think pubs should follow that policy too?

John B

Once, possibly twice, in a several hour session. Are you *that* desperate for a drink? I think the OP was referring to the time spent by the harassed person behind the bar, fumbling for change in a poorly-lit, small and cramped environment, with a queue of thirsty punters, possibly including yourself, baying for beer :)

That's entirely up to the pub(chain) concerned. I think most punters at a beer festival go there to try a wide range of beers, not to down as much beer at a preferential price as possible. The two scenarios are not really comparable. Referring to my earlier statement, the pub usually has a proper till, set on a firm, adequate surface, with plenty of light. He may well still have a queue of thirsty punters, possibly including yourself, baying for beer :)

Yes ;-)

That sounds as if the problems are at the serving end, which comes down to training and facility provision.

Shouldn't a beer festival?

John B

Well, there's a number of comments to make here.

Firstly I am convinced that while tokens are undoubtedly easier for the staff, they are more difficult for the punter. They are much harder to count, for a start - counting money is second nature, counting small pieces of paper and tearing them off isn't.

If you're trying to attract the average punter and not just beer festival stalwarts - and as CAMRA we are surely trying to market real ale to the unconverted - then I think you need to make the beer festival experience as little annoying as possible. Making people buy strange little pieces of paper in advance is annoying.

The bar staff should not be

if they are you need to redesign your stillage.

If you price beer in multiples of 20p per pint then you reduce the amount of mental arithmetic the beer staff need to do. Or if you price all the beer the same as has been discussed on another thread.

In terms of speed of serving, from working behind beer festival bars, I have noticed that drinkers are more likely to buy rounds at a cash bar.

I'm not sure there's an argument for security either - you shift the problem from cash, to small pieces of paper which suddenly have value. And while most people wouldn't stoop to theft - recycling small pieces of paper may be seen as fair game.

Maintaining the right amount of change can be a problem, but don't forget that most people will change a large note at one point in the evening and will then give the change back to you - you just need to make sure you have a sufficient float at the beginning of the day, and make arrangements to swap change between tills when necessary.

I can see that tokens have advantages for bar staff, and some festivals may find they have particular advantages for their circumstances. BUT, as a punter I much prefer a cash bar, and I suspect most other punters feel the same. On that basis alone, I think cash should be the preferred option - the customer is always right, after all.

In a perfect world, I could agree with your replies. Perhaps you would like to visit the Cotswolds Beer Festival this year (July 28-30th). You might then revise your views. As in previous years, it will be held in a Tithe Barn, which is a listed building set in some beautiful countryside. It's lovely, the punters love it, the old stone walls help keep the beer at a good temperature. The atmosphere is tremendous. All is joy and wonder. The reality is that there isn't an awful lot of room, the floor's uneven, to get a decent range of beer means that the stillage area is cramped, fairly dimly lit, and the place is heaving. But every year is a sell out, everyone loves it, and many come along

"fumbling around' and appearing "harrassed" can be reduced by good training.

You may provide that, but some others don't.

A paying visitor deserves good service.

John B

Unless, as the consensus of opinion reached here seems to indicate, we eliminate the differential pricing structure and use one token = one half pint.

Our Cotswold festival is (as I've stated in my reply to John B, above) held in a Tithe Barn, reached by a walk down a rough drive almost three quarters of a mile long. That's pretty annoying, especially if it's raining. Doesn't seem to deter people though.

See my reply to John B above. Other than move the festival, which no-one, punter nor organiser wants, have you any practical ideas? Perhaps you'd better visit the festival before answering that one.

Totally agree, especially with 'all beers - same price'. Even when using tokens. The bar staff don't particularly like tearing off little tokens for differing amounts, as they're sometimes asked to.

Tokens don't seem to stop people buying rounds at festivals I've attended.

Yes, just drop the 'spent' tokens into the drip buckets.

Which doesn't invalidate my argument against the use of cash, for the reasons I gave.

Absolutely.

BUT, as a punter I much prefer a cash bar, and I

Where on earth did you get that quaint notion from? :)

You have, of course, taken my remarks completely out of the context in which they were meant.

Hardly a consensus. I disagreed and an OP who was involved with Stockport BF also supported differential pricing. It is also probably the norm at BFs - so most BF organisers who don't post here seem to agree that differential pricing is reasonable.

However, if you do price all beer the same, yes you can just sell pint and half-pint tokens. But then it also makes cash handling easier, so I'm not sure whether it changes the argument that much.

I'm pleased that you have become such a successful festival that you can sell out even with the above conditions against you. Doesn't mean you don't try to offer the best experience once people are there, and doesn't mean you don't try to improve it further. maybe all your punters think "great festival, lovely beer - but these bloody little bits of paper are a real pain in the arse, what's wrong with cash?"

Your staff should not be working in a poor environment. I can't understand why you feel you have no control over it - the building might be challenging, but cuplock scaffolding is pretty flexible and I don't see why lighting can't be provided behind the bar without spoiling the overall atmosphere. There should certainly be adequate room behind the bar to work. Tills don't necessarily reduce the amount of stillage available - if your bar counters have a shelf, they can go underneath the counter, else they can be on brackets attached to the stillage (as at GBBF).

I always wonder why tokens aren't usually printed in numbered strips, which would make it easier to count them.

Your experience obviously differs from mine, but note that I did say "worked at", not "attended": maybe working all session behind the bar at a number of different festivals gives me a more representative point of view.

I suppose that would work, the remaining gunk might be hard to dispose of, depending on the venue's plumbing arrangements. It wouldn't stop leakage of tokens before they went in the buckets, though - to be honest I have no experience that token pilferage is a problem, but a couple of old CAMRA hands indicated to me that it could be.

It does suggest that running out of change needn't necessarily be a problem.

From attending festivals that seemed to be run for the benefit of the organisers.

Seriously, what you do at your BF seems to work for you - but you seem to think it's a panacea that can be rolled out everywhere. The GBBF has both differential pricing and a cash bar - if it works on that scale, there has to be something in its favour.

The "one price for every beer" method works very well in the beer festivals I go to in Belgium and the Netherlands but unfortunately there are just enough idiots in this country to cause problems with it. I'm sure everybody who's served at beer festivals has had them, probably not normally real ale drinkers but attracted to the festival by the thought of getting as pissed as possible on strong ales. Who usually come to the bar and ask "What's the strongest beer you've got?" I worry that a fixed price system would make our beer festivals even more attractive for that type and we'd end up having more trouble.

When I was writing up the tasting notes for the bottle bar at last year's Ipswich beer festival I was horrified to see Samichlaus priced only a little more than 4.5% Czech lagers - I don't think the chap doing the pricing realised how strong it is, but fortunately he agreed to put it up to reflect its strength, otherwise I would have sold out very quickly but had a lot of very drunk idiots to deal with.