Reading beer festival.

[gillhalfpint]

Anyone rich enough to give this one a whirl this year?

Open: Thu 4.30pm-11pm;
Fri 11am-3.30pm, 5pm-11pm;
Sat 11am-4.30pm, 6pm-11pm;
Sun 12pm-7pm.
NEW for 2013,
Advanced Tickets,
£18.90 for Fri evening + all Sat sessions;
£15.90 for Thu, Fri lunch sess + Sun.
Advanced Prices including entry, festival glass, program + 6 1/2 pint vouchers (3 pints).

On door prices: £8 Fri evening, all day Sat £5 Thu, Fri lunch + Sun.
Prices include entry, festival glass + program but NO drinks vouchers.
CAMRA, EBCU + RURAC members get additional 1/2 pint voucher.

[gillhalfpint]

Forgot to mention, the glass is not refundable, and the difference between advance and door prices is £10.90 a session so the half pint tokens are valued at £1.82 each and only usable on beers under 6%.

[NickDavies]

Bears all the symptoms of long hours of committee wrangling resulting in an over-complicated mess. Having a 90 minute afternoon break is madness. Once you've been thrown out you've got to kick your heels for an hour and a half, and all the decent pubs will be mobbed, and then go through the rigmarole of getting back in again. If you've come any distance and need to get away early evening you may well give up on it.

[london calling]

I am sure this will kill this fest off.Apparently they lose money every year but this is going to drive away the punters.Shame.

[Aqualung]

It's years since I attended a CAMRA beer festival in any capacity, but was under the impression that these events required a coherent business plan behind them. This seems to be nothing more than a shambolic rip-off.

Beer served on gravity that's been kept in a warm room rather than at cellar temperature is usually pretty poor in my opinion, so if they are also selling it at prices higher than local pubs (not just Spoons) then what's the point?

As for the afternoon break, I can't believe that they are still doing this! They used to say that the staff need a break, my recollection of CAMRA staff at beer festivals is that they either work like navvies or just turn up to tick off the beers they haven't tried before and then disappear. The navvies do need a break, but probably don't get as long a one as they deserve.
I reckon the afternoon break is another way of ripping people off by making sure they pay to return in the evening rather than stay all day.

[london calling]

the 2 session idea is to make more money.The organisers reckon a lot of people stay all day and only have 2 pints.this way everyone has to pay for 3 pints and buy a glass.Or 6 and 2 glasses if you stay all day