please empty your brain below
I have been to a couple of fair/fetes this year and attendance was down at both. I think it has been too warm. It was too warm for me.

John | 22.07.18 - 7:09 a.m. | #

7% proof = 3.5% ABV.

I suspect the cider was 7% ABV.

Henry | 22.07.18 - 8:31 a.m. | #

Degrees proof; percentage ABV :-)

Sarah | 22.07.18 - 9:35 a.m. | #

Sorry to be pedantic but Chucklehead would be shipped up from Devon and not Somerset as it is produced at Shillingford near Tiverton.

dg writes: Fixed, thanks.

AndyH | 22.07.18 - 9:44 a.m. | #

As an exhibitor on two stalls, a fair review. The main stage suffered from not being at the bottom of the slope. The layout of community organisation pitches was very random and dispersed, with huge distances to trek. One wonders how much the whole fence and airport security costs, and hope that it doesn't kill off the event. As ever, though, a great mix of everything - vegetable puns included.

NickW | Homepage | 22.07.18 - 10:56 a.m. | #

Anything involving cursory groin checks is to be avoided in my experience.

Especially in this heat.

I feel sorry for the cursory groin checkers.

drD | Homepage | 22.07.18 - 6:28 p.m. | #

I'm inclined to think that security checks like this are at best pointless and possibly counterproductive. Apart from the cider queue it seems that the greatest concentrations of people (and therefore the best terrorist target) may well have been the queue for the security checks or the crowd crossing the road, both of which were before any check.

Andrew S | 22.07.18 - 8:28 p.m. | #

Sadly, the main point of security enhancements like this one is not to make the likelihood of terrorist incidents (low anyway) any lower. It is to ensure that if there is such an incident, the organisers can show that they tried hard to avoid it.

Malcolm | 22.07.18 - 9:32 p.m. | #

I wonder if there is a sort of terrorist incident that involves gazebos or open beverage bottles.

Have there been any public order problems at the event before: gangs with knives, people spraying acid on infants in pushchairs, that sort of thing? Was there a noticeable presence of armed policemen, just in case a nutter turned up?

Andrew | 23.07.18 - 8:39 a.m. | #

I was shocked to find most of Brockwell Park barricaded off - it is a free event after all. I arrived at the Tulse Hill gate and spent 20 minutes trekking around walls of what someone had graffitied as 'Brockwell Park concentration camp' before gaining admittance at the Herne Hill gate. Once inside the mixture was much as in previous years (although I didn't see the traction engines and mechanical organs which were my highlights of the show's early years). Hopefully the crime level was next to zero - over my decades of attendance I have never witnessed any crime (but the Met will have the official figures).

Ian Paton | 23.07.18 - 11:33 a.m. | #

Really didn't enjoy this year. The site was far too cramped with all the good 'country show' stuff pushed to one side in favour of stalls selling warm 330ml cans of beer for £4.50 a pop. Seemed fewer local traders selling food and more 'corporate festival' £7-a-hot dog types.

Shame that a good event has gone this way but it has been sadly coming.

Stockwell Sid | 23.07.18 - 12:12 p.m. | #

The place where the Main Stage used to be isn't outside the new site. It's instead been taken up by the entrance gates for people heading in from Brixton Water Lane.

Was a real shame seeing numbers significantly down, but it still had the magic it always has had, and it must be one of the few London events to still get a proper diverse mix of just about every type of Londoner

lockedintheattic | 23.07.18 - 1:14 p.m. | #











TridentScan v2.10.0 | Privacy Policy