Battersea 2002 - Visitors’ feedback

Of 3,470 paid admissions to Battersea 2002, 1,470 were for CAMRA members and 1,900 for non-members.  Of 301 feedback forms received, 252 were from CAMRA members and 49 from non-members.

            161 forms identified ‘What’s Brewing’ as their first source of information about the festival, 78 identified word of mouth, 32 their CAMRA branch and 31 ‘London Drinker’.  13 had found it on a CAMRA Website and 19 had been attracted by a poster or flyer.

            86 forms offered comments, reproduced below.  Of these forms, 76 came from CAMRA members (branches as shown) and 10 from non-members.

Many people simply enjoyed the festival, and said so::

·       Great festival - thanks (N Oxon)

·       A great beer festival to kick off the season (N Hants)

·       Excellent festival (S Hants)

·       Super (Exeter & E Devon)

·       Excellent festival, will be back next year!! Thanks or should I say cheers!! (Kingston & Leatherhead)

·       Thanks for an excellent festival - why have I not been before!?! (N Herts)

·       Beer quality and atmosphere both excellent. Well done (Surrey/Hants Borders)

·       Thanks for coming back! SW London)

·       Good to see you back (SE Essex)

·       Great to see the festival back again (Enfield & Barnet/E London & City)

·       Great festival, thank you to all those involved in the organisation of the event, and thank you for supporting Battersea Dogs’ Home (W Kent)

(£888.19 was raised in the collection tins.)

and all the work on the hall was appreciated:

·       Excellent venue (Colchester & N Essex)

·       After problems with the floor you’ve done a very good job (Portsmouth)

·       Thanks. Sorry about 2 years ago, we were here Thursday but Friday my mate turned up and the floor was no more? Great festival, keep up the good work (Portsmouth chairwoman)

·       Always like the Battersea for its atmosphere; isn’t it nice you got the floor back! (W Middx)

The selection of beers won approval:

·       Excellent - great to have you back, and good beer availability on last day!  Thank you (Kingston & Leatherhead)

·       An excellent selection of beers. Well done!

·       Excellent beer range as usual

·       Brilliant selection of beers at this festival! (Mid-Surrey)

·       At long last we have got some decent new beers at Battersea - a long time coming.  We can drink Cobbold’s favourites 52 weeks of the year elsewhere? (S Oxon)

·       Excellent beer range, well conditioned as usual (Portsmouth)

·       My technique is to sample beers that are ‘fresh’ - ie they have been ‘put on’ recently and are therefore in excellent condition. The beers I have listed were the pick of the bunch, but most were enjoyable and scored highly - my benchmark is 7½ out of 10 and no beer of the 24 I sampled at the festival over 3 days scored less than this - GFB scored 9, Deuchars and Pots 8¾ - but I am a hard taskmaster! 8½+ in my ratings puts a beer in an elevated category

·       My first time. Very nice. Like the idea of having all the dark beers together - saves searching too hard (Cambridge & District)

·       Good to see more 4% beers

·       Excellent selection - particularly low gravity ales

·       Nice to see so many beers under 4%! (I like a nice session) (N London)

·       A good selection of session beers (W London)

·       Not enough ‘session beers’ (in OG 1030-1036)

·       Good choice of perries/ciders and ‘foreign’ beers

·       No favourite imported/foreign beer award? (Surrey/Hants Borders)

and particularly the milds:

·       Was pleased the amount of milds on sale (Coventry)

·       Great beer range (especially dark ones), but a little ‘safe’ (Kingston & Leatherhead)

·       Food good and plenty of seats even on a Friday. Beer range good especially the milds on Wednesday night. Labour X Conservative X Lib Dem X Green X Independent X. Bugger them all until we get a full pint for our money (Croydon & Sutton)

·       Not enough seats, or mild when I visited (Croydon & Sutton)

Comments on particular beers are always helpful:

·       Make the Young’s Double Chocolate Stout available for Camden ‘London Drinker’ Beerfest!

Enough seating is obviously important:

·       Delighted that there is plenty of seating (Stourbridge)

·       More seating, as always, would be welcome! (Deal, Dover & Sandwich)

·       Closer Ladies, please and more seats (in the hall, not the Ladies) N London)

·       Needs more places to sit.  And ventilation (Cambridge & District)

·       My feet hurt (Richmond & Hounslow)

·       More seating please (Canterbury)

As for the clientele:

·       Good fun. Need more younger visitors to wean them off lager!

·       More red heads (women) please

Most liked the food, but some wanted more snacks to choose from:

        ·       What a wonderful time was had by all, thank you all very much. This is the humble view of a recent visitor to these shores. I think I may decide to stay! The food is good/ex, please note this for the future! (E London)

        ·       Festival: slow into stride but developed well. Food: very good. Toilets: attended promptly with refills. Overall: keep it up (Enfield & Barnet)

        ·       Well done, the floor is wonderful. I thoroughly enjoyed myself today - my first festival of 2002. The food was excellent as before. Thanks (SE Hants)

        ·       Very enjoyable festival. Great choice of British beers. Good selection of foreign bottled beers. Enjoyed the food (but could we have proper cutlery?) (SE London)

        ·       Food - lovely, but v. pricey! (Surrey/Hants Borders)

        ·       This will be sacrilege to the really serious drinkers, but what about a few crisps/nibbles to tide people over until the queues for the hot food die down?? (SW London)

There’s always the one (or more):

·       I would have liked a choice of rolls or sandwiches here (S Beds)

·       Pathetic choice of food. No cheese/ham/beef rolls

·       Food area poor for this size of ‘do’

·      Food - uninteresting and expensive (Croydon & Sutton)

·       Nothing in between crisps & £3-4 meals (W London).

The band did well this year:

·       Thanks - most enjoyable again - nice not to be blasted by a brass band (Portsmouth & SE Hants)

·       Best jazz session of all the festivals so far - the beer wasn’t half bad either! More of the same next year? (Brighton & Sth Downs)

·       Excellent festival, splendid jazz band, good choice of beers on Saturday afternoon (Croydon & Sutton)

·       Good music, in fact brilliant (Canterbury)

·       Great band

Some important things to consider for next year

first, cloakroom facilities:

·       I would very much like a place to store my coat and bag/briefcase safely, so that I can enjoy the festival unencumbered! I would willingly pay a small fee for this service. (E London)

·       Why does Battersea BX find it impossible to supply any cloakroom facilities or space to leave luggage - even at ‘own risk’? Most other festivals can cope.(Portsmouth & SE Hants)

Second, cooling, or at least less heating:

·       Please use cooling on the beers - we are in 2002 and even wet towels are better than none!! (Kingston & Leatherhead)

·       Shame about high temperature. CAMRA cooling equipment???

·       Beers are a bit too warm (Kingston & Leatherhead)

·       Beer bit too warm! (SW London)

·       Beers slightly warm by 4pm Friday. (Colchester & N Essex)

·       Place and beer a bit warm - get them to turn the heating off next year! (E London)

·       You have to solve the problem of the windows not being openable due to the locks on the double-glazing. Temperature in hall on Thurs and Fri pm late was horrendous. By the way, did you realise that the Town Hall heating system was ‘on’ throughout the festival - check the radiators in the lobby!!! (Stockport & South M’cr)

Third, enough battery power in the hoist to get all the beers up on the Monday:

·       Quantity of ales was poor, probably only a third at a time on Weds and Thurs. Suggestion - reduce number of beers by 50%, improve quantity of each beer to take up shortfall; therefore beer of the festival will be a true vote because it will be available each day. (Richmond & Hounslow)

·       Yet again so few beers available on Thursday noon. This is really ‘off-putting’; if same next year it will be the last time I attend. I’ve dropped Twickenham for the same reason! (N Hants)

·       Not enough beers on (Thurs); most of my favourites not available (N Surrey)

·       The selection on Thursday morning was extremely disappointing (Mid-Glam)

·       Not enough choice at Thurs session (afternoon) (Mid-Glam)

·       Too many beers not on (North Surrey)

·       Where’s the JHB!!! (Richmond & Hounslow)

·       Shame the Oakham JHB ran out so early

(The second kil was still on at close on Saturday.)

·       Beer range on Wednesday night (very poor) although I realise this is to maintain a range throughout the festival; others seem to manage more than 10% of beer available. I travelled 50 miles for the festival and was disappointed; at the very least the limited range should be highlighted in the publicity (Surrey/Hants Borders)

·       Beer range very poor considering it was the first day!! Bit overcautious (or under-ordered) were we? (E & Mid-Surrey

·       Could have done with a few a few more of the beers on on Wed nite (SE London)

·       Weds night: bit of a limited selection eg nothing beginning with ‘D’! Sounds pedantic but you end up trekking round having not found your five top choices, then looking trough the programme, and not really knowing what you want.  I know you would like to save beers for the remaining few days - but perhaps could issue separate guides per day telling punters which beers are available.  Otherwise - nice festival. PS ??Music (Northampton)

·       Don’t save them - drink them! Don’t hold back. (Reading & Mid-Berks

(All our beers go on as soon as they are ready but, owing to the electrical hoist arriving on the Monday with low batteries and no recharger, many could not be stillaged until the Tuesday and had not settled before the Thursday evening.)