Sir – I feel that the Twickenham Beer Festival organising committee is entitled to a right of reply to correct misleading information in the letter about the running of the festival (RTT, October 31).

Attendance at this year’s beer festival broke all records and on Thursday night it was 20 per cent up on last year.

Unfortunately, there was no way that we could have foreseen this. We were actually expecting numbers to drop, given the state of the economy.

Over the three days of the festival, 3,150 customers paid to come in and – from feedback – the vast majority had a wonderful time. This somewhat contradicts the wording under the photograph accompanying the letter.

The facts about the queue on Thursday are as follows. At almost the exact time your letter writer turned up, the duty hall manager from York House carried out his fire limit and health and safety check.

We had already let in the maximum number of “visitors”

allowed by the fire limit to the whole area of York House that we had rented.

The duty manager (in consultation with our very highly qualified health and safety officer) was concerned that our 40 or so members of staff, together with the area of floor space dedicated to serving and storing beer, made our interpretation of the existing fire limit unsafe.

We were thus asked to reduce the number of visitors in the hall by 40. This is the reason why the queue, which normally moves quite quickly on a “one in, one out” basis was being held up when the lady arrived.

I am sure you can now see why it would not have been possible simply to usher people into a different area. There were no other areas, covered by our rental agreements and insurance, into which they could have been moved.

All feedback we receive is taken into account at planning meetings for future festivals.

However, it is perhaps time, once again, to remind people that the beer festival is entirely staffed and run by unpaid volunteers. They give up hundreds of hours of their spare time and, in many cases, a whole week of their holiday allowance to put on this popular event in Twickenham.

It might be far more productive if those who feel they can improve on the festival organisation simply get involved.

Join the local branch of Camra at rhcamra.org.uk and volunteer to help in the future.

BRIAN JOBIN
Twickenham Beer Festival publicity officer