Wheatsheaf Beer Festival - 24th to 26th May 2008
The run up to this, our fifth spring festival, was accompanied by predictions of all kinds of meteorological disaster from the forecasters, which, come the event, proved to be happily overstated. Saturday was warm, sunny and breezy, and the rain held off till nearly 11 o’clock, and Sunday was warmer, sunnier and calmer, and it didn’t rain at all until the middle of the night – in short, we were fantastically lucky with the weather!
The beers and ciders were a great success, so much so that the ciders had all run out by early Sunday afternoon, and the guest beers had gone by 9 that evening. Never mind, there’s always plenty of Harveys! The music was of a great standard, with Surface Tension, John McDevitt and the Fabulous Allstars all doing a super job, and the Wadhurst Brass Band (all 29 of them!) blew up a storm on Monday afternoon.
We really have no idea how many people visited us over the weekend, we just know that the bar, the marquee and the garden were jam packed, particularly on Sunday night which seems to have become a Crowborough party night over the last two or three years. It was certainly a great success and our thanks go to everybody who came and helped to make it what it was.
In particular we thank our staff, they all worked their socks off over the weekend under what were at times very difficult conditions and did a really terrific job for us, so a huge thank you to Sue, Fran, Anne, Serena, Karen, Lauren, Mike C, Sam, Josh, Del, Keith, Paul and daughters, Pete, Little Michael, Michelle, Jessie, Adrian and Roger.
Lessons Learned for 2009
We are always looking to improve and make our event run more smoothly, which means it will be more enjoyable, so in looking at what happened during the course of the 2008 festival we are already planning changes for 2009, which should include the following:
1. The installation of a permanent additional ladies WC
2. We will double the order for guest ciders
3. We hope to be able to increase guest beers from 24 to 30
4. We are looking at ways to take some of the load off the main pub bar, by making some major products (perhaps draught lager, wine, Pimms) available elsewhere too
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