Festival roundup

Mon, 10 Aug 2009
Posted by Tony Jerome

It has been a really good year for GBBF and other CAMRA festivals around the country. We were over the moon to see a 7.6% growth in attendance figs, especially when you consider how the economy is at this moment in time!

Festival highlights:

(1) 64,000 through the door - up from 59,500 last year, which is a 7.6% growth.

(2) 1,400 new members.

(3) CAMRA celebrated the 100,000 member landmark!

(4) Girl's Guide to Beer Tours - 4 tours with 18 girls on each - sampling a variety of different beer styles around the festival with Melissa Cole.

(5) New Shepherd Neame Ingredients Area - allowing consumers to find our more about beer - touching, smelling, tasting the different beer ingredients. They could also sample the range of different beers Shepherd Neame brew, ask questions and see how a brewery worked.

(6) Superb national press coverage for the event and the real ale category including a real ale supplement in the Independent that was also distributed at the festival.

(7) Champion Beer of Britain went to a mild! Rudgate Ruby Mild (York), 4.4% abv.

(8) More volunteers than ever before - 1,200.

Mike Benner's Chief Executive said, 'This year's Festival was a huge success and demonstrates the increasing interest in real ale as our National drink. It was great to see such a mix of people during the week with lots of younger drinkers and women enjoying real ale.'

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