Attendees of a beer and cider festival held in the city centre over the weekend have dubbed it ‘the Wonka of beer festivals’ after reporting a ‘strange atmosphere’ and an alleged minimal selection of beers on tap.
Held for the first time, the International Brewing and Cider Festival took place at Depot Mayfield on Friday and Saturday (March 22 and 23). With more than 100 brewers and cider mills said to be attending the event, the festival was poised to feature ‘the largest collection of beers and ciders in the UK, if not Europe’.
Sharing their reaction online to the not-for-profit event, where tickets started at £20 each, some attendees described the festival as having ‘no atmosphere’, whilst one person described it as ‘one of the worst events for beer that I have ever been to’.
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On X, Richard Leonard wrote: “I don’t think I’ve been to a worse organised event. The term ‘Couldn’t organise a **** up in a brewery’ was made for this festival. Mid-session there were less than 100 people. The signs on the cask and keg were too small to read at any distance.
“People pouring on the bar had no knowledge of any of the beers & no info in the app. For the entry fee of £20 to drink out of plastic, beer costing ‘town prices’, & some of the brewers had packed up and left hours before the end, left me feeling like I’d been ripped off.”
Mark Christie said: “Exceptionally well presented as an international beer festival but in actual fact one of the worst events for beer that I have ever been to. International is a joke, my ticket got me to the “special beers” and all the beers were from UK.”
Speaking to the M.E.N, Simon Robinson, who is an events promoter and festival organiser for events including Craft Beer Fest, said he attended the event on Saturday night. “The set up and production of the event was really professional – you can’t fault the organisers for that,” he explained.
“There just wasn’t anyone there and the atmosphere of the event was really flat. It’s such a shame the organisers didn’t manage to sell enough tickets and I felt sorry for the breweries who had travelled a long way to showcase their beers.”
Tickets to the event started at £20, which included entry and a festival glass with a chance for people to then ‘pay as you go’ for drink tokens. A ‘beer geek’ ticket, costing either £35 or £40 depending on the day, also included five tokens for drinks and an opportunity to sample some of the beers taking part in the International Brewing & Cider Awards. A weekend ticket, including three wristbands including five tokens in each, was also available for £90.
Posting on Reddit, another customer said they were told there was ‘limited stock’ of some of the specialist beers on offer, and claimed they were given half a can of beer in exchange for a token as ‘as that’s what [it] entitled me to’. They added they felt it ‘could be the contender for Manchester’s Wonka experience.’
The Reddit user posted: “I expected it to get a bit busy but it never did. Combined with some depressing music and freezing cold temperatures the atmosphere was strange.” They added: “By this point we decided to leave at the same time as others. I didn’t want to kick up a fuss as I just wanted to get out of there but an older guy was trying to find the organiser to get his money back.”
One attendee also said one of the festival’s bars was closed when they visited on Saturday evening, whilst another bar had also shut before the 11pm closing of the festival. They also compared the festival to the Willy Wonka Experience event in Glasgow, which went viral earlier this month after families complained about the poor quality of the event.
Dr Scott Turner-Preece told the M.E.N: “I heard about the event as it was billed as a world-class festival with the biggest collection of beers in Europe. The venue and the price of the tickets at around £40 each raised my expectation that this was going to be a special event.
“However, as soon as I walked through the door with my three friends to say we were bitterly disappointed is a major understatement. There was nobody there; half the breweries had given up and gone home and the bar was closed. A steel drum band was playing to a crowd of zero with the distinctive Caribbean sound echoing eerily around the empty hall. A table was set up against the wall with a selection of bottled beers such as San Miguel and Tennent’s.
“A lone pizza vendor constituted the entire ‘street food’ lineup. The cask bar closed early at 8.30pm as apparently the beer was bad. This actually might have been an act of kindness as the one half of cask I had was flat and warm. If the organisers hadn’t sold enough tickets for the event, why didn’t they say so and just cancel and give us all a refund to save everyone from this absolute shambles.”
Another attendee described the event as ‘the Wonka of beer festivals’ and asked for an apology from organisers. They added: “I’ll get over the financial cost but distrust such events in future.”
Speaking to the M.E.N, organisers behind the event said that around 800 people attended the festival across four sessions across Friday and Saturday. Throughout the festival, 93 different cask beers were available to order from with more than 400 different types of bottled and canned beers and ciders also available.
Organisers said the 19 different drink and food suppliers attended the festival across the weekend, and they have received only a couple of direct complaints regarding the event.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the International Brewing & Cider Festival said: “We are very sorry that some people had a less than perfect experience – this was our first Festival and when you start something new, there will be learnings.
“We are a not-for-profit trade organisation representing the value chain, supplying the brewing and beverage industry. As the organiser of the oldest international brewing and cider awards in the world, we held the Awards in Manchester this year and wanted to bring the entries from around the world to the public in the city. We adapted throughout the two days, ironing out some early teething troubles to deliver a better model as the event progressed.”
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