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Camra York Beer Festival 2024 – Why I want a refund!

October 8, 2024

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I’ve never been a member of the campaign for real ales, Camra, but I’ve been attending their beer festivals for several years, especially when they were previously held at York Racecourse. That was a good venue and a good day out. I’ve always baulked at paying an entrance fee; there are no free beers or reductions; however, a big tent (church now), organization, and a ~~band~~ all have to be paid for, so I suppose I can’t begrudge it.

However, others claim that Camra is not what it once was. Their membership once allowed you free entrance to their beer festivals, but not anymore. Some members pay to be in Camra and still have to pay for the event, which seems unjust; however, not my business; I just pay to go in and have an enjoyable time.

Economic Tension

This year’s 2024 event was their 50th, and I could feel the economic tension, and I had to suffer as a result of it. A little thing at first. Their glasses are no longer refundable, which I believe they implemented the year before with the change of venue. But being told I could have brought my own and that it was stated on the website felt antagonistic and desperate to get hold of my money. I didn’t want a souvenir glass and did not want to carry that about and would rather have had my £3 back. They offered no free alternative, but for £1 I could get one of the old half glasses, also in glass format.

50th Year

Deemed a special 50th event, they made their now non-refundable glasses out of glass(i only knew them as plastic). Before admitting defeat, I took a wander around the festival to see if I could secure a glass another way. Asking several of the volunteer staff if there were any other spare glasses, even requesting Kate’s tip jar (which was a pint glass) be something else. During my asking, I was blatantly accused that I was going to steal someone’s glass.

Do volunteers think they are exempt from customer service?x

Do volunteers think they are exempt from customer service?

I accepted defeat and went back and purchased a previous year’s non-refundable half-pint glass—only one pound! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not begrudging the side hustles, and making the money from glass sales is surely a good one for Camra, but remove my choice, and it is a red flag that something is up.

Red Flags

The red flags continued later with the unfortunately bad-timed arrival of another friend. This friend, a non-drinker, was supposed to arrive at about 8 pm. Usually, we leave the beer festival to get something to eat, so they were supposed to coincide with that. For whatever reason, they arrived at 4.30 pm.

I sensed this was going to pose a problem with the ticketing staff as it was on the cusp of changeover pricing. Their pricing structure was a day session for £8, an evening session for £8, or a full-day ticket for £12. The time of demarcation is 5.30 pm. At this stage, we were oblivious to any change to that pre-defined information.

Of course, I was expecting a ticking-off as it looked like that person was trying to nick an hour from the day session into the evening. They didn’t know the person had no idea about tickets or timings. However, I was fully expecting to pay £8, with a friendly don’t do it again.

It wasn’t that, though; it was rather unpleasant. Immediately being told that the evening session had been sold out and that the £8-day ticket would last for an hour, or by this time 40 minutes, was only available. Then in the same breath, informing us the day ticket could be upgraded to the £12 all-day ticket, which would allow entry to the evening session. The security staff loomed closer and repeated the same information as I tried to understand what had just been said.

As a ticket allocation method, I could just not comprehend what was being said, my brain automatically jumping to health and safety quotas and legal loopholes. ie, a certain amount of tickets can be sold per session, but the all-day ticket would be the loophole to circumvent that. However, it did not make sense at the time and still does not.

I exclaimed my disgust and claimed it was extortion, which I’ve since looked up the exact meaning of, and it wasn’t extortion. Making me feel uncomfortable with a looming security presence does not constitute a threat, but I digress. I took some names so I could formally complain. After which my friend and I left, leaving my other friends. But not before a volunteer staff member said he had done his best. You’ve done nothing I advised. Well, I was talking to your friend while you were talking, they responded.

Metrics

After checking the website, I could not find the exact capacity for the venue. They have a large outdoor area, but I suppose there must be some rule on capacity for the inside of the venue.

I was never that good at math, but let’s suppose 500 was the venue allowance. That must allow “x” amount of day sessions, “x” amount of night sessions, and “y” amount of all-day tickets. For ease, let’s just say those represent 400 and 100, respectively and assuming you were trying to maximise profits you would want to sell more individual tickets than all day. This means you would never exceed the 500 capacity if you were sold out of both, and both values are intrinsically linked. For instance, if you sold 401 evening tickets, you would only be able to sell 99 all-day tickets or whatever permutation. You just can’t exceed the maximum entrance.

Their website confirms the type of information we were given when trying to purchase a ticket on Saturday upon entry. Using “sold out” as the ambiguous metric and they even suggest booking for the Saturday. It stands to reason that if using that metric and only selling all-day tickets, you must have sold out of the evening session tickets. But those reading will realise even that doesn’t make sense and why we left.

Complaint & Response

I sent my complaint in requesting for my entrance fee refunded in the first instance and remedy for the missed evening. I received the following: I’ve extracted the salient points.

“…At the end of Friday, it was apparent that, without taking action we would likely sell out of most of our cask, keg and cider by the end of the next day. We therefore closed Saturday Evening and All-Day advance ticket sales so that those already with tickets would be offered a reasonable choice, and hopefully a positive customer experience. This approach worked e.g. we still had 20 casks on when the event closed. We could have sold more tickets but would likely have run out completely, making a lot of evening customers unhappy.”

“I believe you bought an Advance ticket and arrived earlier in the afternoon session. You could therefore have stayed until close at 11pm . It was obviously your decision to leave early and decline the offer made to your friend. The volunteer entrance staff were following the agreed ticketing approach and did their best to explain this to you. Therefore, there are no grounds for a refund.”

Deceit & Low-Level Fraud

We now understand from the email response that the term ‘sold out’ is erroneous or a deceptive term substituting one metric for another. Restricting entrance as a preventative measure if stocks become unexpectedly low is not the same as sold out. It’s ostensibly plausible that this was a genuine reason, but that’s not what was communicated at the time and thinking about it I’m sure it’s the same every year. On this occasion it was highlighted by the arrival of another person; It also indicates a severe lack of planning for a 50th event, but I digress.

Furthermore, why not just say that at the door? ‘We’re running out of beer, so your choice will be limited. Do you mind or still want to come in?’ If your favourite restaurant runs out of chicken, they tell you. If Camra had shown that kind of integrity, and their metric was genuine they would have been provided with the information that the person didn’t drink and that we would most likely be leaving in a few hours, probably sooner if the beer festival had no options for non-drinkers. They would have still made the entrance sale & preserved their inadequate stock and not caused a load of distress.

Instead, they’ve asserted they were sold out of evening tickets and used their pre-defined ticketing structure to engage in what can only be described as attempted low-level fraud.

No, this was greed and certainly a deception, and I want my entrance fee refunded.