The festival, one of the highlights of the year in the city, and one of the biggest beer festivals in the country, was due to be held at the end of August. But today, organisers confirmed this year’s event had been called off. In a statement, the organisers said: “Further to the COVID 19 statement that we issued at the end of March, we have this week reviewed our position and now confirm that Peterborough Beer Festival 2020 will not go ahead as originally planned in August. Without any other guidelines to follow, we have to assume that social distancing in some format will be in place for many months to come. The nature of the festival itself is dependent on several thousand people coming together every day for five days, in close proximity to one another, in a social and enjoyable environment. It would be pretty much impossible for our volunteer staff to observe the increased standards of hygiene and security that are essential to maintain a totally safe system of dispensing products on the scale required. We know how disappointed you will be at this decision, but our priority has to be that we take the correct decision now to ensure that all of you will be fit and well and able to attend the 43rd Peterborough Beer Festival that will now take place 24th to 28th August 2021. HOWEVER, subject to government guidance and social safety measures, can we ask you to put a note in your diaries for the weekend Friday 28th August to Monday 31st August (which would have been beer fest weekend) during which Peterborough CAMRA will organise a Peterborough City Ale Trail. By this time, we hope there will be less restriction on smaller groups of friends getting together so that we might help many of our local independent pubs by visiting them during the weekend.”
