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| Experiences |
Was it ever going to end any other way? One of the major bugbears of anyone travelling to a major event is "Why are they all in London? It's a long way from me!" (of course, the rail network is specifically designed for no other reason than to get from Anywhere to London quickly). CAMRA have found out why the big stuff happens in London. In moving the Great British Beer Festival to the NEC in Birmingham, they turned a moderately unprofitable event into a six-figure loss-maker. And based on the attendance figures, it will likely be the last of its kind.
That sound you're hearing right now is the CAMRA National Executive tightening its belt. The £320k shortfall at the GBBF has no doubt resulted in it being pulled a few more notches than otherwise intended at the start of this financial year. The savings targets are what you'd expect - moving printed matter to digital, and vague talk of "being leaner", "streamlining" and ending "nice to haves".
If we're being honest here, the financial climate in the UK has not been great for a long time, so it's surprising CAMRA hasn't seen this looming over the horizon for a while. Discretionary spending is down, and prices in pubs have only been going up. But CAMRA's main enemy is simply the passing of time.
CAMRA's membership, despite the impression you'd get from the literature and posters, has skewed to the elderly for some considerable time. I've heard I'm in the youngest 20% of members - and I'm 50 in three months. There's always been churn as the older members, well, die off. The problem in recent years is they're not being replaced. The org's traditional recruitment method was to get people into beer festivals and sign them up to a direct debit (a practice frowned upon by even the rapacious Street Fundraising companies, but I'll let that slide for now), but as Beer Fest numbers decline, so do the potential new members.
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| Average cask ale drinkers |
The "Young People" (by which I mean the under-40s) CAMRA want to attract rarely go to things like Beer Fests. They have a reputation as being infested with middle-aged, drunken, bigoted and sexist dinosaurs. If the Millennials drink at all, it's either at home or quiet times where they can use their phones in a corner. And as for CAMRA's offer? If you become one of the desperately-needed "active volunteers", the activities offered are a combination of an OAP's charabanc and a 70s trade union branch meeting. As a result, CAMRA will likely be moribund within the next decade.
I did joke on X yesterday that maybe CAMRA could make up the losses by sending membership forms to the UK's retirement homes and sheltered housing schemes. But on consideration, I think these are the only people who would seriously consider joining now.
A major problem for CAMRA has been that it has diversified into all kinds of tangential activities and lost sight of its core purpose.
ReplyDeleteIn living memory CAMRA were celebrating record numbers of new members. Eh?
ReplyDeleteJust before the pandemic. But, as the post says, beer festivals have always been a key driver of recruitment, and they haven't really recovered to what they were before.
DeleteThat's a really good read.
ReplyDeleteI saw a guesstimate that a £320,000 loss equates to a shortfall of 10,000 visitors spending, say, £32 a time. But of course that whole spend isn't profit, there's a cost of beer, and anyway the 5 of us who went probably drunk half a dozen strong halves each, nowhere near £32.
So you're talking a much bigger visitor number shortfall.
At a beer festival, any unsold beer has to be poured down the drain, so a shortfall in revenue does pretty much pass straight through to the bottom line.
DeleteNot a lot to argue against there Matt. The move to Birmingham had disaster written all over it. The fixed costs of the festival if remotely the same size as a London event mean that predictions of footfall should have been minimalised to see what that would mean for viability. It should have meant that the business case would fail.
ReplyDeleteThis was CAMRA's Ardennes Offensive and while not as devastating, it will hasten an inevitable retreat. Though a collapse is unlikely, it will likely presage a return to local campaigning and socialising - the national picture isn't always a main concern locally anyway - while us old gits are still alive and a bit of national lobbying while super complainant status is still with us.
Demographics do tell the story here, and actually as folks get older the idea of not just retirement homes, but aiming at retirees isn't so daft.
It does mean that big CAMRA beer festivals will slowly die out as members get too decrepit for the physical effort.
I'll use ths as basis for a blogpost I think.
Agree with all that, Peter.
DeleteWhat I disagree with is the anonymous comment about the death of pubs. If anything, young folk are more visible now than pre-COVID, though beer prices don't help.
Sad. CAMRA, pubs, cask ale. All be gone in a decade.
ReplyDelete