How much !?!?!?!

I think you should:

a) Name names, and

b) come to the (CAMRA) Stockport Beer & Cider Fest next year - max admission four quid (and that's only on Friday night) but it's usually more like £1.50 or £2. £2 refundable deposit on your glass. Most beer comfortably under £2 a pint.

John C

1. Most community centres are ruled out by the controlling body(s) - that's the council and the governors - not wanting an unruly drunken mob in their building. Yes, we all know that isn't what happens but they won't listen long enough to get the message across.
2. The venues that do match the required criteria (fire limits, facilities etc) usually have some sort of deal with a "hospitality industry provider" so that either has to be bought out or you don't use the premises. (The Great British Beer Festival could have gone to Wembley but they wanted a rather exorbitant "corkage" that would have left customers with little change out of a fiver when buying one pint of ordinary bitter) End result is an expensive hall or none in many cases.
3. The glass charge should be a deposit to encourage you to take care and not break it. i.e. take the glass back and have enough money for bus fare home.

Mind you, having said that, 6 quid does seem expensive for a small festival.

In article , Manky Badger writes

You think that's bad, see this abomination happening in Edinburgh:

Yes, that's Eighty-five quid a head! And no real beer, neither.

(I'm not sure if these are the guys who ran "Scotland's first beer festival" in the old post office on Princes Street some years back - that one was put together by someone who'd read descriptions of a German beer festival and had faithfully reconstructed their own version from their misunderstanding of what they'd read - but if they are, they've a bit of a nerve, once again claiming to be Edinburgh's "Inaugural" beer festival)

Steve

I agree that price is expensive. It can be expensive to hire premises, but charging that much discourages short visits and causes bad feeling. Most festivals will charge £2-£3 for non-members and many do whole-festival tickets which allow multiple visits.

The glass deposit is usually refundable, but there's a worrying trend for festivals to sell glasses rather than loan them. I understand why branches decide to do this - they don't want to be left with hundreds of commemorative glasses at the end of the festival - but most festival regulars will have dozens of glasses already and certainly won't want any more. A better approach might be to offer either a commemorative glass for sale or an unmarked/randomly marked glass for loan - say a pound deposit.

Best regards, Paul

-- Paul Sherwin Consulting

And CAMRA members are admitted free at all sessions too :-)

There was a mini Oktoberfest in Yokohama yesterday. Choice of local beer (Kirin) or Erdinger Weiss at 1000 yen plus 1000 yen deposit for the 500ml glass or Bitburger and Erdinger dark for 700 yen plus

Wayne

Sadly all too true I think, although the one exception I know of is Congleton Beer Festival which uses the local leisure center - which, incidentally, has its own bar with a good reputation for excellent and varied beers & ales. Like many other aspects of modern life the simple and time honored tradition of having a few good beers is subject to profiteering, political correctness and a lot of C.Y.A.

I don't go to many beer festivals - mainly because I object to paying for the privilige of paying for beer.

SkyMover

my favourite quote on the 2nd site you mention was this -

Classic! (I found the quote by clicking on the "what" button) cheers, MikeMcG.

I've not done the work for a few years, but at one time the logo design was all mine. I produced something I liked and other people I knew liked and wanted to keep. I carefully trimmed the glass order to match expected sales and we held a stock of plain glasses and remnants of previous years stock was actually sold on a separate stand. When I started glass stocks had been moderately high but they dropped and others in the committee were clamouring for increases in the order.

Produce a product people want and it goes. Produce something naff and you need to do the "it's part of the entrance price and there is no refund" malarky.

How about same deposit on both and you can swap it for a souvenir glass later if you want? You see I happen to know that version works and your alternative with short run commemorative glass production would be very expensive.

In message , Steven Pampling wrote

I was once involved in beer festival organisation and can confirm that if you have a naff design it can make a 40/50% difference to glass sales.

A design liked by a committee and that is only relevant to branch members may not actually be liked by the majority of people who attend a festival. The festival attendees don't actually care that it's the