ORGANISERS have cancelled the Corsham Craft Beer & Gin Festival next month after failing to secure enough advance booking sales to cover their costs.

The event was due to have taken place at the Corsham Rugby Club on Friday and Saturday, August 3 and 4 but only 70 tickets were sold.

Malcolm Shipp, of the Melksham-based Stealth Brewery company, said: “We took the decision, with a heavy heart, but we were hoping that a few hundred people would turn up and we had sold only 70 tickets.

“We sincerely apologise to those of you that wanted to come and who were looking forward to the event, because we were just as gutted about this as you are.

“We promised to refund everyone who had bought a ticket, and this has already been done, with funds going back to the original cards the purchases were made from. Please allow a few days for the funds to hit your account.

“Many people, although disappointed with the decision, have understood the commercial reasons for the cancellation, and have been very supportive. Others have questioned the reasons for the cancellation, and the timing of it.”

Mr Shipp added:"Setting up any event of this nature from scratch is always a risky business. The time it takes to plan the event – finding the right venue, getting the various suppliers on board, booking entertainment, planning the various forms of advertising – together with the up-front costs involved, is a huge outlay for any business, but particularly for a small brewery like ourselves. And that’s to say nothing of things that are outside our control – like the weather!

“Any such event is entirely posited on the ability to attract sufficient numbers to make the event worthwhile, both in terms of commercial return, and in terms of the atmosphere likely to be created at the event itself.

“We have to plan, both for ourselves, and for our suppliers, to be able to make enough money to at least cover our costs. Whilst we were not looking to make much of a profit on the event, bearing in mind that it was a completely new venture in Corsham for ourselves and our partners and our suppliers, we had to be sure that we would be able to pay all our bills. No-one would thank us for being unable to do this!

“We knew roughly how many people we needed to attend in order to break even, and we knew (from previous experience with other types of event) that this needs to be reflected in advance ticket sales.

“Unfortunately, with less than three weeks to go to the opening session, ticket sales were well below our estimates and expectations of where we should be at this stage. Equally the rate of daily sales did not give us any confidence that we would reach anything like the numbers needed.

“Even if we’d sold three times the amount of tickets by the time the day arrived it still would have been a poor show and that’s not something we could either afford or wish to put our name to.

“We therefore reluctantly decided that it was better to cancel the event at this stage, rather than wait any longer and simply be in the same (if not worse) position with only a couple of days to go.

“This at least gives everyone – ticket-holders, suppliers, musicians and ourselves – just enough space and time to make alternative arrangements.

“We will not emerge unscathed from this cancellation. No-one else will be out of pocket except ourselves. The up-front costs that we have already committed will have to be written off. That is the price we have to pay for having got it wrong.

“If there had been any way that we could have carried on, rest assured that we would have done so. There is no-one more disappointed than ourselves.

“However, it would have been commercial suicide to have continued, to have incurred losses that we could not cover, and to leave other parties out of pocket. There was no point putting ourselves out of business, simply for the sake of persisting with an event that would not have been a success.

“A couple of examples for you to compare to. Devizes Beer Festival which has run successfully for almost 20 years made a huge loss this year at their festival earlier this month. The Gin Festival Ltd which has organised packed out events all over the country went bankrupt last week resulting in 20,000 ticket holders losing their money.

“It’s not as easy as some folks might believe to organise an event such as this. We have acted in good faith and fast in order to refund ticket purchases and to save our business from suffering further loss in a time that is difficult enough for small business and we sincerely hope you would understand this and support us. Lots of festivals get cancelled and lots of people lose money, both festival goers and organisers, we wanted to avoid all that.

“Some people suggested that we didn’t make it clear enough how important it was to purchase tickets in advance. If we didn’t portray that enough then we apologise and will take that on board for future events.

“We believe we have made absolutely the correct decision, given all the circumstances. Once again, we would like to sincerely apologise to anyone who has been disappointed or inconvenienced.”