From 8am today, beer fans can snap up tickets to the region’s biggest beer festival.
The Manchester Beer & Cider Festival takes place in the National Cycling Centre’s Velodrome from 21st – 24th January 2015 and will feature more than 500 beers ciders & perries over two levels.
The inaugural event held last year was an unprecedented success with almost 30% more visitors than anticipated meaning that, despite a capacity of over 2,000 people, thirsty drinkers had to queue outside at peak times.
For 2015, the event is expanding to take over the whole of the Velodrome concourse and floor and is making tickets available in advance so eager fans of the booming craft brewing scene can guarantee their place.
Visitors to mancbeerfest.uk can book their tickets from today with prices for most sessions being just £3 (plus a modest booking fee). To celebrate the launch, an early bird discount of 50p a ticket is available until 20th November by entering code “MBCFEarly” at the checkout.
Festival organiser Graham Donning said:
“We got lots of enquiries for advance tickets last year, but we thought we had capacity for everybody who would want to come so didn’t make them available. With the continuing growth in the craft beer market, we are expecting even more visitors in 2015 so it makes sense to let them guarantee their place by selling tickets in advance.”
The 2015 festival will see around half of the beers & ciders on brand new bars around the concourse of the Velodrome. As well as two new cask beer bars with a choice of almost 200 beers between them, the concourse will host four brewery bars and a new cider & perry bar majoring in locally produced ciders. A new “Rest of the World Bar” selling craft beers from Holland, Spain, France, Czech Republic and the USA will complement the German, Belgian and Budvar beers available on the floor’s Bière Sans Frontières bar.
From the concourse, visitors will be able to grab a beer and sit in one of the 3,000 seats overlooking the cyclists on the track.
On the Velodrome floor (via the stairs or the step free route of lift and ramp) there will be another 200+ beers on another two cask bars, another cider and perry bar, the Real Ale in a Bottle bar and a plethora of brewery bars including Manchester’s own Marble Beers and the enduringly popular Hawkshead Brewery.
Tickets go on sale from 8am on 14th November from www.mancbeerfest.uk
For further information contact:
Clare Barber 07545 600 825
Notes to Editors:
1) The Manchester Beer & Cider Festival is organised by the Greater Manchester Branches of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA). 2) Advance tickets are priced at £3 for entry during Wednesday, Thursday and Friday daytime and £6 for Friday evening after 5pm (all prices plus 10% booking fees). Early bird discount code will be active until midnight on 20th November.
3) The 2014 festival attracted over 10,000 visitors who drank over 40,000 pints of beer, cider and perry. The 2015 festival will have another 17,000 pints available.