So what's the deal with having a session from 11am - 3pm, closing, and then 
re-starting from 5pm onwards?

The reason I ask is that I went to an "evening" session last week with half 
a dozen mates. Thought we'd do the usual trick - get there promptly & have 
somewhere to sit. We got there at 5pm. No queues at all and inside the place 
was heaving with people.
Obviously there'd been no break in drinking.
Had we known this we'd have been along for 2pm rather than wasting an 
afternoon waiting for the thing to open.

#include <d1jj4s$dua$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk>


>So what's the deal with having a session from 11am - 3pm, closing, and then 
>re-starting from 5pm onwards?


To let the (usually unpaid) staff have a break.


>The reason I ask is that I went to an "evening" session last week with half 
>a dozen mates. Thought we'd do the usual trick - get there promptly & have 
>somewhere to sit. We got there at 5pm. No queues at all and inside the place 
>was heaving with people.
>Obviously there'd been no break in drinking.
>Had we known this we'd have been along for 2pm rather than wasting an 
>afternoon waiting for the thing to open. 
>


Maybe the festival had not been selling the beer at the rate they
expected and extended the session.

Rich
-- 
Richard Parker

[By the end of the 20th Century there will be a generation] to whom it will not
be injurious to read a dozen quire of newspapers daily, to be constantly called
to the telephone...[and] to live half their time in a railway carriage or in a
flying machine...
   - author Max Nordau, 1895.

Following on from Manky Badger's message. . .

>So what's the deal with having a session from 11am - 3pm, closing, and then
>re-starting from 5pm onwards?

It sometimes happens and sometimes doesn't.

The reason is to give the organisers the ability (if circumstances make 
it desirable) to close for a while to have a rest, tidy up, do 
behind-the-scenes stuff like shifting casks around when it impinges on 
the public areas or the labour might be being stretched too thin to 
serve and get all the other things done at the same time.

Another reason is to allow for an orderly and planned clearing out of 
groups who ought not to be continuing drinking.

A discreet phone call to the organisers or long experience should tell 
you.  If everything is going smoothly and everyone's had something to 
eat and things are nicely ticking over then most organisers will go 
straight through.

-- 
PETER FOX Not the same since the bottom fell out of the bucket business
peterfox@eminent.demon.co.uk.not.this.bit.no.html
2 Tees Close, Witham, Essex.
Gravity beer in Essex  <http://www.eminent.demon.co.uk>