Andy C Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 The information was correct at time of writing, there was plenty of beer and the cider had ALMOST run out. However when you are part of a team running a busy beer festival the last thing on your mind is going on Facebook or Sheffield Forum to announce extra cider. Sorry if that caused any unneccessary disapointment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sharp87 Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 The information was correct at time of writing, there was plenty of beer and the cider had ALMOST run out. However when you are part of a team running a busy beer festival the last thing on your mind is going on Facebook or Sheffield Forum to announce extra cider. Sorry if that caused any unneccessary disapointment. you were so busy that you weren't aware of a delivery of 100 gallons of cider? i would certainally be surprised if i was running a beer festival and that volume of cider turned up out of the blue. was that the excuse for being the first beer festival ever not to have a list of the beers that are available on its opening night? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrannyGranny Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 Back off and wind your kneck in. I attended on Sat and it was an excellent festival. Its totally run by volenteers who I'm sure would have rather been on the other side of the bar. The selection of beers was superb and the added bonus of some nice bottled lager was welcomed. I can however blame you for my sore head on sat morning! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thewickerman Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 Could be a group called Peachy. Very good Ive heard. I've heard that too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thewickerman Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 Peachy - Sunday, 11th October at The Springvale, Commonside. I knew I should be somewhere on that day! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sharp87 Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 Back off and wind your kneck in. I attended on Sat and it was an excellent festival. Its totally run by volenteers who I'm sure would have rather been on the other side of the bar. The selection of beers was superb and the added bonus of some nice bottled lager was welcomed. I can however blame you for my sore head on sat morning! i am aware with the setup of a beer festival and have been to countless others in the past. i've never encountered anything like what happened at the sheffield one before. i know i wasn't forced in or anything but still, things could have been better. and then the main bloke behind the festival coming on here and actually putting people off going because of his inaccurate information? hmm. its odd, the sheffield beer festival has a very different atmosphere to any other i have been to before. seems to attract a younger crowd too, which is great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ciderman_UK Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 Andy Cullen is the Chairman of Sheffield CAMRA, however he is not the person in charge of the festival, that role goes to the Festival Manager Dave Williams. But at the end of the day, this years festival was the biggest and best one since the eighties. I have worked at the festivals since 1986. All the staff are volunteers, it actually costs money for the staff to work there as there are travel & food costs to cover. I worked 76 hours in 5 days. If anyone thinks they can do better, don't just moan on here, join CAMRA & volunteer to work next years festival. You may be surprised to know that next years festival planning meetings will be starting shortly. Andy Cullen not only works as Sheffield CAMRA Chairman, he's also the Editor of Beer Matters & has a fulltime day job in Derby, if anyone wants his job the AGM is in April. Personally I think he does a great job. But nobody is perfect, we all make errors here & there but I'm sure that the majority of the 1000's of people we served at the festival had a great time. :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy C Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 you were so busy that you weren't aware of a delivery of 100 gallons of cider? i would certainally be surprised if i was running a beer festival and that volume of cider turned up out of the blue. was that the excuse for being the first beer festival ever not to have a list of the beers that are available on its opening night? Don't want to bore you with too much details from behind the scenes or sound defensive and annoying, but here goes anyway.... Cider: as of Saturday opening time we fully expected to have to close the cider bar by tea time as neither of our original suppliers could provide any more. However a customer who came to the festival at lunchtime put us in touch with a guy who had organised a beer & cider tent at a music festival in Barnsley that was poorly attended and had been left with lots of unsold cider, we took that cider off his hands and used it to restock our cider bar. This involved us sending two of our management team off in a van for an hour or so. Beer list: This was available on the website from the word go, however the printed version didn't make it to the printers in time to be available on Thursday as the suppliers of the toilets, water bowser and beer tokens let us down late in the day and the organiser had to prioritise making alternative arrangements for those over getting printed beer lists, which were finally available in time for the busy Friday night session. I won't claim the festival was perfect but it was bigger and better than last year and next year will be even bigger and even better after this years experience. The provisional plan for 2010 is to hold the festival the last weekend in September, again with two tents and an outdoor area, however they will be bigger tents and the cider and beer order will be increased - again. I hope you will come back next year and see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sharp87 Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 Andy Cullen is the Chairman of Sheffield CAMRA, however he is not the person in charge of the festival, that role goes to the Festival Manager Dave Williams. But at the end of the day, this years festival was the biggest and best one since the eighties. I have worked at the festivals since 1986. All the staff are volunteers, it actually costs money for the staff to work there as there are travel & food costs to cover. I worked 76 hours in 5 days. If anyone thinks they can do better, don't just moan on here, join CAMRA & volunteer to work next years festival. You may be surprised to know that next years festival planning meetings will be starting shortly. Andy Cullen not only works as Sheffield CAMRA Chairman, he's also the Editor of Beer Matters & has a fulltime day job in Derby, if anyone wants his job the AGM is in April. Personally I think he does a great job. But nobody is perfect, we all make errors here & there but I'm sure that the majority of the 1000's of people we served at the festival had a great time. :-) and again, i am more than familiar with the setup of the festival and sheffield CAMRA itself. i don't know why you are taking this so personally like I am criticising the festival and sheffield CAMRA. im not at all. the festival was a great success and run by a bunch of great people. all i said was i thought it was a pretty poor state of affairs that the chairman of camra comes on here and says theres no cider when there is 100 gallons arriving later in the evening and you are jumping down my throat and sending sarcastic PM's. i am already a member of CAMRA and have volunteered at festivals before so don't get all patronising with me. i don't see why the fact that i didn't volunteer at this one doesn't mean that i cant criticise it (not that I am even doing so). sheffield is not my local branch and i wasn't sure if i could even make this years festival. in fact, one of the best things about the festival was the very fair pricing of cider - at many other festivals i have seen cider priced like it was beer, i.e 8% cider for example could cost £1.60+ for a half. i have already posted that i enjoyed the music, there was a good atmosphere, the food looked decent. what more do you want? would you just prefer to live in a world where everyone just praised the festival 100% of the time and offered no ways that it could be improved? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sharp87 Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 Don't want to bore you with too much details from behind the scenes or sound defensive and annoying, but here goes anyway.... Cider: as of Saturday opening time we fully expected to have to close the cider bar by tea time as neither of our original suppliers could provide any more. However a customer who came to the festival at lunchtime put us in touch with a guy who had organised a beer & cider tent at a music festival in Barnsley that was poorly attended and had been left with lots of unsold cider, we took that cider off his hands and used it to restock our cider bar. This involved us sending two of our management team off in a van for an hour or so. Beer list: This was available on the website from the word go, however the printed version didn't make it to the printers in time to be available on Thursday as the suppliers of the toilets, water bowser and beer tokens let us down late in the day and the organiser had to prioritise making alternative arrangements for those over getting printed beer lists, which were finally available in time for the busy Friday night session. I won't claim the festival was perfect but it was bigger and better than last year and next year will be even bigger and even better after this years experience. The provisional plan for 2010 is to hold the festival the last weekend in September, again with two tents and an outdoor area, however they will be bigger tents and the cider and beer order will be increased - again. I hope you will come back next year and see. see? this is a fair post. thank you for clarifying all of the points in a sensible manner and admitting to and explaining mistakes. can i offer some other feedback? i really don't like the way the beer tokens work. firstly why did the tokens say 1 beer on each? obviously everyone was quick to work out that 1 beer meant £1 but it could have been a bit clearer. also, fiddling around with loads of 10p's was very annoying. i prefer the system where you buy a £5 card with 50p's and 10p's marked on, and those serving behind the bar cross the values off when used. for people wanting to buy smaller amounts, allow them to purchase tickets that have been returned with small amounts on. i would have done anything to get the beer lists printed, even bought a home PC and printed them off on that. i think that was a massive downer personally. perhaps even have printed a few off and stuck them to tables or something. the tombola was the most expensive one i have ever seen!! 50p a ticket?! also, i saw a lot of people fall for the every 1's a winner trick. i know all beer festivals seem to do this but it always seems a bit unfair, especially at 50p a go, and the staff seemed very unsympathetic. plus i saw nobody win. i came home with a massive haul from keighley beer festival - 4 prizes from 10 tickets (£1.50 for 5). i saw one prize at sheffield of 1 abbeydale pumpclip - there were packs of 20 at keighley the festival was great over all and a big success and dave must be applauded for his efforts - a vast improvement on last year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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