Biddable Croydon: the listing, on the Croydon BID website, for the non-existent beer festival organised by a non-existent company
Dozens of beer- and cider-lovers have been left disappointed and out-of-pocket (for now at least) by the last-minute cancellation of a two-day festival due to have been staged at Croydon’s Fairfield Halls.
But anyone booking in advance for the South London Beer and Cider Festival on March 1 and 2, as enthusiastically promoted by Croydon BID, the business “improvement” district, perhaps should have been a little wary – because there is no trace of the named organisers – Tap and Spile Events – as a going concern at Companies House.
Indeed, there’s no trading business called “Epsom Events”, either, although that was one hyperlink to be found on an email sent to those who shelled out £9.50 in advance for their entry ticket to the non-event.
Non-eventBrite: anyone trying to book tickets this week got a “sold out” message
That email was from someone called “Phil” at an email domain epsomfoodfestivial.co.uk, but guess what…? Yep, there’s no business obviously of that name, either.
Any poor schmuck who, as Croydon BID had encouraged through their online events listing, tried to book a place at the South London Beer and Cider Festival via their EventBrite page earlier this week will have discovered a “Sold Out” notice. But that was far from the case, as Epsom Food Festival Phil would admit in his email to pre-paying punters this week.
The event was supposed to have started from 6pm today and continue through Saturday.
“Tap and Spile Events presents the South London Beer and Cider Festival featuring a quenching range of over 40 beers, stouts and ciders for you to come and try!!” read the enticing come-on from the non-existent company.
They offered “Amazing bespoke cocktails by Inspire and Create Cocktails” (why would you want cocktails at a beer and cider festival?), “Mexican street food by Tacos Mx”, and a range of live music including six-piece soul band New Dawn Soul (“If you love The Commitments, you will love these guys!”) and acoustic singer-songwriter Mike Gill, as well as someone called “DJ Aerteri” from 9pm until close both nights.
The ticket prices (£15 on the door if you hadn’t coughed up on spec) included a FREE (written in caps for emphasis) “commemorative glass to use and keep” and “a FREE pint of beer/ale or cider of your choice on arrival”, which all sounds like a decent deal.
With prices at the festival set at £4 a pint, maybe it was all a bit too good to be true?
We will never know.
Late morning on Wednesday, the organisers… well, Phil at the non-existent business, sent off an email to their eager festival-goers.
“Dear Beer and Cider fans,” Phil wrote.
“We hope you are all doing well. We wanted to contact you as soon as possible about the event this weekend.
“Unfortunately, we have had to now cancel the event until the autumn. This wasn’t an easy decision to make as we hate postponing/cancelling events and we hate disappointing you. Unfortunately, the event just hasn’t sold enough tickets to make it financially viable for us to run the event.
“We had hoped the event would attract around a 1,000 people across the weekend, seeing as it was its first year, however, we have only been able to sell 127 tickets in total.
“This means we wouldn’t be able to give you the high-class, valued event we like to produce and that you deserve, and as a result we have made the tough decision to cancel the event. We are looking for a smaller venue and date for later in the year so we can try and get the event up and running again.
“We are so sorry for the inconvenience and for the cancellation of this event. We will be making refunds to you for your ticket and, we will back in touch at the start of next week to confirm the refunding process.”
Some punters thought this was a curious thing to say. Why “confirm” a refunding process, when all you have to do is go ahead and make the refunds?
The email was signed off by “The Tap and Spile Events team”.
There already exists a handful of established beer festivals staged around the borough – in the Braithwaite Hall, at Stanley Halls and at Selhurst Park- and they usually have the endorsement and involvement of local branches of CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, and their network of beer and cider enthusiasts across the country that ensures that the places are jam-packed with customers.
It’s a rum do: the Epsom Events, like the Tap and Spile website, has just a single, not very helpful holding page
Inside Croydon spoke to the people at BHLive, the Bournemouth-based operators of the Fairfield Halls, but they said they knew nothing about the Beer and Cider Festival, or its cancellation.
It’s all a bit odd.
Companies House has no company called “Tap and Spile” currently trading, although there are seven companies listed of a similar name, linked to places in the Midlands or north of England – Tap and Spile Hexham, Tap and Spile Birmingham, and so on.
All have gone into liquidation or been dissolved. A couple of the companies share a common director, but otherwise they appear unconnected and some have not been in business for a decade or more.
Follow the link for Tap and Spile’s website, and you get a holding page saying “Coming soon”.
It is the same if you look for Epsom Events online … “Coming soon”.
Companies House records do show that a company called Epsom Events Ltd was registered at Worple Road in the Surrey town in 2019, but it was dissolved in 2021. Lockdown wasn’t a great time to launch into the hospitality business. Epsom Events Ltd’s sole director was someone called Philp James Keith.
Having a giraffe: Jason Perry (right) and Croydon BID CEO Matthew Sims have never considered the obvious conflicts of interest in having the Mayor as a co-director
Maybe that’s the same Phil at the Epsom Food Festival? We can’t say with any certainty, because Phil’s been a bit elusive the past day or so, and hasn’t answered the questions we sent to him.
Croydon BID, though, did get back to us.
The non-existent event organised by the non-existent company that they were promoting on their website? Nuffink to do with us, guv, Croydon BID said.
Croydon BID is the organisation that took £50,000 of public money intended for arts in Croydon and turned it into a herd of fibreglass giraffes, if you recall.
Yesterday, they told Inside Croydon that they “have no affiliation” with the South London Beer and Cider Festival or its organisers.
“The event is included in the ‘What’s On’ section of our website, which features the most recent events and activities taking place in Croydon town centre (including those not run by the BID), and businesses can contact us to add their own event.”
Even, it would seem, non-existent businesses. Croydon BID does not appear to have conducted any simple checks on Tap and Spile or Epsom Events before helping to promote an event that is not taking place, while taking money off honest, hard-working people.
Jason Perry, the part-time Mayor of Croydon, is a director of Croydon BID.
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