Day one of festival was very popular and we’ve had some great feedback on the beers but it is a new festival and there is always room for improvement.
We acknowledge that anybody who has any disability will find the stairs (initially 48 down and 18 up) difficult to get to and from the “beer floor”, we did instruct our foyer staff to point this out to anybody who appeared to have some difficulties in walking. We did offer a “flatter” route with lift access – though quite a convoluted route via areas of the Velodrome that we are not hiring – to the floor. We also pointed out that due to staffing difficulties we could not escort visitors one at a time and they would have to wait until we could gather together a relevant number for escort.
The advice we would offer is that if anybody has any difficulties in negotiating the stairs that they sit in any one of the 1500+ seats available with a magnificent view of the festival and that they get somebody from within their party to fetch drinks to them. For this purpose we do have drink carriers available (cardboard “trays”). This way all such customers would be adjacent to the other facilities provided.
We also acknowledge that there is little (if any) seating on the floor as the building is not geared up for providing any real quantity of seating in the centre as it has over 3,500 seats in the auditorium. We are seeking to get as many seats and tables put on the floor today but as with most beer festivals there is always great demand for seating which we thought we had overcome in this venue. The expectation was that many customers would have a couple of drinks on the “beer floor” then return to the seating available for the refreshment breaks required.