Bristol & District CAMRA

Bristol Beer Festival Tickets SOLD OUT

We have now held our two sales sessions for Bristol Beer Festival tickets. There first was for CAMRA members (or those wishing to join) at the Commercial Rooms in Bristol on Sunday 13 January and the second was open to all at the Old Fishmarket, Bristol on Sunday 27 January (the queue for tickets is pictured above). Simultaneous sessions took place at Off The Rails in Weston-super-Mare.

We are pleased to report that selling the tickets this way has overall proved to be very successful. The queues were very good natured and were processed quite smoothly, although the sheer number of people meant that this did take some time, particularly in the first half of the session at the Old Fishmarket. As well selling the tickets in record time the branch also recruited 127 new CAMRA members.

The adoption of this radical new approach for 2008 was driven by the massive demand we are now experiencing for tickets and the fact that in 2007 the majority of people that applied to us for tickets were unsuccessful. The feedback from customers was overwhelmingly positive, with many people saying how pleased they were with the new approach which enabled them to know straight away whether they had a ticket without wasting postage or driving around a variety of pubs in a fruitless search for tickets. Indeed, some people told us they had applied by post for several years, but this was the first time that they had been able to secure a ticket.

Click HERE for a short video clip of the queue for Bristol Beer Festival tickets outside the Old Fishmarket.

Last Few Friday Lunchtime Tickets

When the ticket desks closed barely 70 tickets remained for the Friday Lunchtime session of the beer festival. These were put on sale at the Bridge Inn, Passage Street, Bristol at lunchtime on Thursday 31 January and sold out very quickly.

Bristol Beer Festival Information

The Beer, Cider and Perry order for the 2008 festival is HERE

The 11^th annual Bristol Beer Festival will take place at the Brunel Passenger Shed, Temple Meads, Bristol, on Friday 14 March and Saturday 15 March 2008. There will be approximately 120 real ales and 40 ciders & perries. Food will be available at all sessions. The ticket price includes admission, programme and a commemorative glass. Card-carrying CAMRA members will receive a voucher for a free half-pint of beer, cider or perry. Admission is by advance ticket only and tickets are strictly non refundable.

Session Times and Prices:	Friday 14 March	11.30am - 4.00pm	£5.00	6.30pm - 11.00pm	£5.00
Session Times and Prices:	Saturday 15 March	11.30am - 4.00pm	£5.00	7.00pm - 11.00pm	£4.00

This fantastic event, organised and run entirely by unpaid local CAMRA activists, has been growing in popularity every year. For the 2007 festival there were so many applications for tickets that the vast majority were unsuccessful. This caused some real administrative problems for the volunteers dealing with the postal enquiries and led to endless customer queries. We also found the pubs that sold tickets for us often ran out within hours, leaving people driving from pub to pub in a fruitless quest for tickets.

After a full review, the festival organisers have decided to adopt a radical new approach for 2008. The aim is to have a simple, fair method of selling tickets that doesn't involve huge amounts of wasted postal correspondence and returned cheques and means that customers will not waste their time making repeated visits to various pubs to find that someone else has bought up all the tickets. We want to promote real ale within our branch area whilst also rewarding CAMRA membership.

We apologise to anyone who feels disadvantaged by this new method, however please remember that thousands of people were disappointed last year and the huge success of the festival has made the old approach untenable.

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