RedNev blogged a few weeks back concerning the perverse system of ticket sales that Merseyside CAMRA use to sell tickets for their beer festival. Tickets, apart from a small number for less popular sessions sold by post and a tranche reserved for festival workers, are purchased by queueing in person in Liverpool city centre on a designated day. This penalises anyone who isn't local and means that few tickets are sold to the public at large.
The designated sale day was yesterday. A friend of mine got up at 6:00 a.m. yesterday to travel to Liverpool to queue up. Joining the queue at 8:00, he stood in the hail and wind for over two hours but when he eventually reached the head of the queue only one ticket remained for the Friday night - he had hoped to buy three, hardly an excessive order.
Why not spread tickets sales across a number of pubs, or sell them all online which would be the fairest method. I'm sure the vast majority of punters would find a small fee for postage better than the hassle and cost of queueing in person with no guarantee of tickets.
Up at six and queueing in the rain for one ticket? And Liverpool Branch say people like the queueing, the banter and the jolly atmosphere. Even if that were true, which I don't believe, I expect the joy would have evaporated rather quickly for your friend.
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