Purely as an observation on Carol's original complaint about inappropriate rooms within a venue for singarounds etc.

(Please bear in mind that I have not yet attended Cleckheaton, but have experience of other festivals).

One factor which may result in sessions or parts of festivals finding themselves in less-than-desirable settings, is architecture. Many public houses in Britain were built in the Victorian or Edwardian eras, and are full of odd passages, funny-shaped rooms and awkward bar arrangements. Unfortunately, not much can be done about this.

<OT?>What may affect several public houses and other venues in Britain in coming months are regulations on access for the disabled. This ought perhaps to have a separate thread to itself, but I will observe that, regrettably, some older venues may simply be forced to close rather than spend many hundreds of thousands of pounds on ramps or lifts for those confined to wheelchairs. Nobody could disagree with the sentiment that anyone whose mobility is restricted should not be able to use any venue, but the expense of providing this is being thrown entirely on the owners of the property.

(To take an example, Glossop, where I live, has three venues which are publicly owned: the Town Hall, Victoria Hall above the public library, and a similar venue above nearby Hadfield Library. All three will require extensive modernisation to comply with the disabled access requirements. The local Council can stump up the cash to modernise only *one* of these three.)</OT?>

More relevantly, another factor which organisers can perhaps affect to some degree, is the provision of bar stewards, and other staff. Most public houses hire bar staff on a temporary, part-time basis. The arrangements are often casual, in all senses of the word. Where such arrangements break down, function rooms which have their own bar and which are some distance from the main bar(s) cannot be used.

It is also regrettably the case that some landlords changed their name by Deed Poll at some point, from "Ebenezer Scrooge". They are unwilling to pay extra staff for an event, or put themselves to the effort of trying to contact, or make proper arrangments with, a shifting, irregular pool of potential bar workers (many of whom will be students or people on benefit).

It should also be noted that some public houses are "tied" i.e. owned or controlled by a brewery, and the publican is merely a tenant. The landlords of tied houses do tend to change every two or three years, and a landlord who was so accomodating and helpful to a festival last year, may be replaced by an irascible curmudgeon next year.

Other public houses are "freehold" i.e. the licensee is the owner. Where such a freehold licensee is a supporter of the event things are obviously much easier. Not much can be done about a hostile freehold publican, except wait for him or her to die or retire.


So far as the organisers of a festival are concerned, there are a few steps which they can take with regard to the owners or licensees of a pub, to ensure that arrangements proceed smoothly. It helps if they give lots of notice, and can forecast the numbers which will attend. Obviously a festival which has been running for years will have an advantage over one being run for the first time in this respect. Plenty of publicity (flyposters, websites etc) helps.

It is also useful if the licensee has a fixed contact with the organisers. It is no good if the only contact details are a few mobile telephone numbers, some of which are unobtainable and others which belong to people only tangentially connected with the event.

In the case of a tied house, it is sometimes a good idea to involve the controlling brewery. They can support willing landlords, and often contribute with extra grants and publicity. On the other hand, many festivals won't be happy with big-name breweries muscling in on the event; and some commercially-minded big breweries are only too happy to see their name in bold type on the publicity but then contribute little to the event.