Was in the barge yesterday post rugby. Seems to be some renovations going on. Anyhow it used to be my favourite place to get the JW Sweetman beers which are now gone. Beer selection not great. Ended up having a Guinness citrus ipa.
Good to see this being called out. The practice is all too common, though, and not just festivals, it's one-off concerts too. As all of these need a licence to operate, maybe that's the way it could be tackled - a "non-exclusivity" clause, or something?
The big breweries who make these events commercially viable wouldn't participate if they didn't have exclusivity, so the event likely wouldn't happen under such circumstances. There's a possibility that this campaign might make the likes of Heineken Ireland consider the bad publicity they're getting from it, but they'll be balancing that against the benefits of their exclusivity contract. Either way, it's Heineken's decision to make: I doubt that the state authorities or the festival organisers can do anything about it.
It's interesting that other Festival Republic gigs like Reading and Leeds don't have a big brewer as a headline sponsor, but then I guess suitable candidates are a lot thinner on the ground in Ireland compared to the UK.
It's interesting, I'm on the periphery of Electric Picnic's target audience. I don't like festivals (but if the right acts were playing, then who knows!) but my kids are of the age to be going and they've been to EP. I listen to the radio a lot, especially Today FM, the "official EP station", and this article is the first I've heard about Heineken being the headline sponsor.
It's not so much that Heineken are the headline sponsor so much as they have the contract to exclusively sell beer at the event. This contract would come at a massive cost.
It is a large injection of cash to EP, but maybe sponsorship isn't the right word.
Edit: Heineken are one of many "partners"
I think it's just making this guy look a bit stupid to be honest.
We all know the big festivals, stadiums and venues have exclusivity deals and we all know why.
If this guy thought he could open a brewery and operate at Electric Picnic he really doesn't know much about the industry he is after getting involved with.
I guess that underlines the importance of the exclusivity clause: people might not notice your company's name in the event publicity material, but if your product is the only one of its kind they can buy while there, then it's possibly worth doing. Their beer money would go somewhere else otherwise.
I've been to a couple of big beer festivals in Denmark where both Heineken and Carlsberg had huge flashy stands and new products being launched, to absolutely no interest from attendees. The Heineken bar was a handy place to stand when everywhere else was too crowded :)
Early EPs had independent bars.
There could be both.
I wonder will Heineken allow a small Ballykilcaven stand to operate for the sake of PR.
He knows exactly what he's doing. He's not new to any of this. The win isn't having a bar at EP, it's having a raft of new social media followers and an article in the Indo, for zero marketing outlay. You literally can't buy what Heineken and EP have given him; why not use it?
I think he knows the industry - look at the publicity he's got pointing out EP banging on about sustainability, while a multiple winner of sustainability awards from 2.5km away is locked out!
I didn't know this brewery existed or if I did I'd completely forgotten before this video, if I was going to EP I'd be heading into the shop he mentioned to buy cans of his beer, I'd say there's a few heads who will, for the cost of a video he's lost nothing and could gain quite a bit.
Doesn't seem stupid to me.
Having someone complain about the obvious certainly wouldn't full me with confidence about a place or have me running to it. But then I I don't believe in the idea of "no such thing as bad publicity"
I wonder how many craft breweries would sell Heineken in the same spirit of openness.
Not the same thing at all! But, well, all of the Galway Bay Brewery bars in Dublin (I think) are selling Guinness; and The Gasworks sells Heineken... Meanwhile, my own local, asked for my usual Hope on my most recent visit (which always sold reasonably well there) to find nope, it's solely a Heineken/Diageo house now - I could get Lagunitas (Heineken) if I wanted a "craft" beer.
So yeah, fair play to Ballykilcavan, they've got many thousands worth of free publicity.
And as I mentioned, it's not just festivals, it's venues, too. I was involved in organising a major convention in Dublin a few years ago, several thousand attendees coming for a 5-day long event. We absolutely knew a good proportion of the attendees would want craft beer available (there's a large social element to this particular convention, people travel to it every year, there's a large intersection between the con subject and craft beer). It was a huge struggle to get the venue to agree, because of "supplier contracts"...
Fair play to him. I think there should be legislation brought in to guarantee a minimum (small) percentage of independent/local suppliers for major events/festivals.
How would you guarantee it? What if there's no independent/local supplier willing to attend?
The other side of it is that were independants allowed to set up stall, the cost of the pitch would be so high that making money might be extremely difficult!
Same as I suspect some of the smaller food suppliers struggle to cover the huge costs associated with doing business at festivals!
I know it sucks and sadly it's not as easy as just "moving to a different venue" which I'm sure some people suggest when discussing it.
Unless you get lucky and are near a venue that cares as much as you your screwed. But restricting the right of a venue to sign these contracts is just silly.
Then the exclusivity option is offered?
So all an event organiser needs to do is make a side-arrangement with any eligible local/independent producer to ensure they won't ask to attend, and then they can keep their lucrative exclusivity deal with the headline multinational sponsor. Nothing will change for the consumer. That's before you even get into how to define a "local/independent" supplier in a way that works for the legislation's intent. This stuff is really hard to get right. There are loads of examples of unintended consequences in the history of licensing law.
Is Guinness a local producer for Dublin and Heineken for Cork for instance.
It was nice to see the food and drink on site and for the closing ceremony for the Tag Rugby World Cup in Limerick was from Treaty City and Wickham Way market.
Had a sample of the the new Kinnkegar 'Brewers at Play' 33 today out in the Brewary.
Its another hazy IPA BUT...BUT its pleasingly bitter. great stuff.
I'm going to try dig up the NINETEEN SIXTIES state document I found claiming that the big breweries in Ireland - there were only three then as now, but a slightly different lineup of Guinness Limited (who even owned Bulmers from 1961-67), Murphys and Beamish were acting in a manner that was "anticompetitive but not illegal".
That still defines the sales tactics of the big three now, plus MolsonCoors; albeit Heineken appear to be much more aggressive in that manner than the others are and Diageo the least. Outside of an occasional concert I've not seen a Diageo-only or Diageo-with-one-single-other bar but I've been in plenty of Heineken only and MolsonCoors only bars; mostly with a solitary Guinness tap to satiate those drinkers and also claim its not just one brewery.
I suspect Diageo are the one most likely to potentially be done for abuse of a dominant position and hence can't be as aggressive, whereas the other two-and-a-bit big breweries can get away with whatever they want and point to Diageo's market share as cover.
60 years and nothing changes.
I think Croke Park is Diageo. Pretty sure I was drinking Carlsberg there and the GAA would have a long history with Guinness.
It is Heineken in Pairc Ui Chaoimh of course. Can't be having Guinness down there.
The only stadium I ever remember having craft beer was Cronx in Selhurst Park which was in spite of Crystal Palace having a big MC sponsorship deal.
Amex has two local independents - Harvey's and someone else, it was Dark Star when they were indie, and still existed - plus nearly always a local independent or craft to the visiting teams area. This is despite being a Heineken stadium otherwise.
Will be in the big smoke next weekend going from Connolly to Heuston. Is there anywhere in between handy to grab a few (cold) cans? Will possibly stop at Fidelity for 1 but won't have time to go walking too far out of the way.
Underdog at the top of Capel Street or possibly Drinkstore on Manor Street.
Fresh supermarket in Smithfield have craft beer (not sure about cold though)
They have a fridge,
could always dip into brew dock if they still have a GBB takeout fridge?
Both of those are good options.
Depends on how much time @irish_goat has. Neither are that close to a Luas if you are trying to maximise time.
I was in Stoneybatter properly for the first time last week and I do understand why it would be a very interesting place to be if you were a Dublin resident I wouldn't recommend it for a "tourist" like myself.
