Important Bristol Beer Festival News

This happens every year - very little advertising till the tickets are gone. What are the dates ? Presume it's at - where, the council house again ? Where are the purchse points - Bag o Nails ? I'm south bristol so anywhere down here would be handy if u know.

Last year I went up the Hare to pick up tickets, only to find since John wasn't running the gaff any more, they weren't selling tickets. After that weekend (6 weeks before) it was too late :-P

The information is on the website, but I'll copy the main stuff below. We do also write to all branch members in November and the festival was the cover story of the November edition of our Pints West newsletter, 7,000 copies of which are distributed around pubs in the branch area.

We have actually moved the festival to the Brunel Passenger Shed at Temple Meads station, which is twice the size of the Council House. It's also very handy if you want to get there by train!

The dates are Friday 4 March and Saturday 5 March 2005.

Friday 4th March: 11.30am - 3.00pm £3.50 6.00pm - 11.00pm £5.00 Saturday 5th March: 11.30am - 4.00pm £4.50 7.00pm - 11.00pm £4.00

You can get tickets from the following pubs:

Plume of Feathers, Hotwells, Bristol Bridge Inn, Passage Street, Bristol Wellington, Horfield, Bristol Off the Rails, Weston-super-Mare.

It's a good idea to call first to check stocks before travelling a long distance. They should all have Friday lunchtime tickets. For Saturday tickets your best bet is the Wellington.

Postal ticket applications (no personal callers) with S.A.E. to:

CAMRA c/o 7 Kellaway Court, Kellaway Avenue, Golden Hill, Bristol, BS6 7YP

Cheques payable to Bristol & District CAMRA.

Please ensure that you provide a contact email address or phone number with your application in case of any queries.

Cheers

Bristol & District Campaign for Real Ale :

Great, thanks Richard.

Yeah, I haven't been getting out as much as I'd like in the last couple of months ;-)

It's extremely handy also cause I'm in Totterdown I seem to remember now you mention the venue, that last year there was a large contingent from London who bought up many of the tickets in advance. Probably having it right next to the station worked well for them !

OK cool (good thing I didn't try the bag o nails, I'd have got no tickets but a welcome diversion ;-)

Thanks again Regs, Neil

Neil, do you know if there are *still* tickets available for Friday lunchtime session? KeithS

Were 6 left at the Wellington Weds evening. I bought 2, there may be 4 left if nobody else got any.

Cheers - Neil

There are still some tickets left for the Friday lunchtime session, but all other sessions have now SOLD OUT.

Looking on the bright side for the customers, there should be plenty of beer for everyone who does have a ticket. Advance ticket sales mean we can gauge the beer order quite accurately and we generally finish the final session of the festival with 20 - 30 beers still on. we also avoid the problem of having to turn loads of people away, which would undoubtedly happen on the Friday night if the event was "pay on the door".

Increasing the ticket capacity is tricky as we are running 4 sessions that will all be full to the fire limit of the current venue, which is twice the size of the venue we previously used.

Cheers

Blackfire band website :

Bristol & District Campaign for Real Ale :

Haha - you got Blackfire playing ? Cool, they're pretty good covers band - always remember their cover of Kylie's "I need you" (or whatever it's called) down the Sugarloaves in Easton - classic ;-))

Better still is their authentic "Bela Lugosi's Dead", Marcus does a good take on that un. No chance of them playing the Friday dinner session tho I guess LOL