THE organiser of this year’s Cove and Kilcreggan Real Ale Festival has spoken about his disappointment at the cancellation of the popular event.
The annual festival, which takes place at Cove Burgh Hall and draws in beer and food lovers from across the country, has been delayed until next year due to the coronavirus pandemic – a disappointment that organiser Phil Woods describes as “unavoidable”.
A post on the Cove and Kilcreggan Real Ale Festival page on Facebook states: “After much deliberation we have decided that the September slot is too soon to be holding a public gathering.
"The precautions to ensure the safety of you, the customers, as well as the safety of the team looking after you, would be onerous and hard to implement in the Hall.
“As a result, this year's Cove and Kilcreggan Real Ale Festival will not take place.”
And Phil told the Advertiser: “We’ve had a few folks on social media disappointed. There was someone who was hoping to come back to Scotland on holiday because of the festival, and they had to cancel.
“We’ll just need to think of something special for next year to make it more memorable than usual.”
The cancellation is also a let down for Cove Burgh Hall, with the money raised from the event given back to the local event space to keep it going.
“It’s a fund-raiser for the hall,” Phil continued, “Everyone penny from it gets paid back to the hell for the running costs as it’s owned by the community.
READ MORE: Helensburgh man builds own lockdown pub in his spare room
“They’ve done a lot of work on the roof – it’s an old building. They spent a fortune and now everything is shut down and all the events have been stopped.”
There are no details as of yet for when the rescheduled event will take place as the Covid-19 pandemic levels fluctuate; however Phil has asked past festival-goers and those interested in future events to give him a hand.
“We’ve always tried to have a theme,” he said, “so if anybody would like to suggest a theme if you could stick it on Facebook page that would be great.”
For more information visit facebook.com/groups/CoveAleFest.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here