Staggeringly Good brewery devastated following capacity reduction at Warriorfest 2023 resulting in hundreds unable to enter HMS Warrior

Staggeringly Good brewery put on their beer festival, Warriorfest 2023, over this weekend (July 21 and 22) which saw hundreds of ticket sales and took place on the famous historic warship, HMS Warrior.

The two day event was enjoyed by all that attended – but there was an issue with the capacity onboard which resulted in hundreds of ticket holders not being able to enter.

The brewery, which is loved by many, made an announcement on its social media Saturday that the staff onboard HMS Warrior had advised them to reduce the capacity to 400 people due to the adverse weather to stay in line with safety guidelines.

The event had sold over 750 tickets and the first 400 people to arrive at the doors were let in but the rest of the ticket holders were unable to – which left the organisers devastated.

Joe Ross, one of the owners of the brewery, said: “It wasn’t pleasant. Myself and Joe and the staff were standing in a queue in the pouring rain having to explain to people who had travelled down for the event that they couldn’t get in.

SEE ALSO: Here are 19 pictures from Warriorfest 2023 which took place on board HMS Warrior

"It was heart wrenching but we faced up to it. We were at the front line trying to tell people and most of them completely sympathised with us – but we managed to essentially sort out a free gig, with some free drinks, for them and we are offering full refunds.”

The team at the brewery posted an update to Facebook offering the ticket holders who had not been lucky enough to get onboard HMS Warrior a party at the taproom with a live band that had been secured in hours.

The team have been updating customers about the refund process via social media and in one post they said: "Thank you all for your kind comments and we fully understand the disappointment of everyone who could not attend be it because of the capacity restriction due to the weather or because of the trains strikes.

"We will be offering a full refund/ credit to everyone who did not attend the festival regardless of their reasons – we feel that this is the fairest and simplest way to proceed as processing each refund on a case by case basis is simply too difficult and drags things out longer than we or our customers would care for.

"We have learned a great deal from this weekend and are currently speaking with the Warrior Events team on how to make sure this situation isn't ever repeated. We really want to make sure WarriorFest continues as we are incredibly proud of the bizarrely bonkers, fun and unique experience we have created that brings a lot of joy to those that attend. There's not enough of that in this world.”

To visit the Staggeringly Good website, click here.