It came as a bit of a surprise to all at ACBF Towers, when during last year’s Saturday session, a vast queue started to form down Twitchell Lane, snaking a hundred yards or so away from the school.
Unfortunately, it took quite a lot of people a long time to get into the festival site that day and we’re still waking up screaming in the night at the thought of it. We’re really very sorry if you, dear reader, were one of the unfortunates that endured that.
But in true ACBF style, we put our thinking caps on and formulated a plan to avoid the queues and help manage logistics on site. It’s pretty simple, there’s certainly no rocket science involved, and it should benefit everyone that buys a ticket for the event.
In previous years, we’ve sold separate online tickets for entry, glasses, and beer tokens. This was one of the causes of Queue-gate, as our merry entrance kiosk staff were having to scan multiple tickets for people. Add to that, folks buying glassware and tokens at the entry area as well, then it’s pretty easy to see where the hold-ups were coming from.
So, the solution for this year involves a few things…
Ticket prices include entry, a glass (Souvenir Pint or Reusable Polycarbonate Half) and your first 6 beer tokens – One scan, collect your glass and pre-counted tokens and you’re in! For anyone wanting to drink from a smaller vessel (we don’t sell wine or prosecco by the pint!), then there’s a cheeky little cool half pint glass to choose from. Your first 6 Tokens buys you any beer or cider from our bar (Cask/Cider £4, Craft Keg £6, and Lager £5). If you want to buy bottles of wine or prosecco, you’ll need to get more tokens before heading to the bar.
Entry will be by online purchased tickets only – walk-ins are great if you are indecisive or a fair weather only festival goer, but they make attendance unpredictable, and it is hard to turn people away! We’re also working on making hard copy tickets available in two village venues – more news on that will be announced on Facebook soon.
We’ve limited the number of people we sell tickets to – Last year on Saturday it was a bit too busy for most people’s comfort, so we’ve reduced the number of available tickets by about 10%.
Extra Token Kiosk – we will have places for you to buy more tokens in the beer tent as usual, and now, out in the festival site as well. Tokens won’t be available at the entry area.
We’re sure that this will simplify the way people get into the festival enormously and reduce queues dramatically. We look forward to seeing you all soon.