We really are overwhelmed by the gazillion messages of thanks and appreciation for our wee whisky festival.
This year’s events proved to be the most challenging yet to organise. However, your lovely words, as usual, have made it all worthwhile.
A very small minority of people have been quite vocal about their disappointment at not being able to buy certain bottles as soon as they were admitted to the venue.
As organisers, we implement measures to admit everyone as quickly as possible but in an orderly manner.
So, firstly, regardless of whether someone has queued outside for 5 minutes or 5 hours, we absolutely will not compromise these measures which we have put in place to ensure the safety and well-being of all attendees, volunteers, exhibitors and Luvians staff.
Secondly, we have over 35 exhibitors with a range of products and, to us, each one is as important as the other. Therefore, if any attendees feel their enjoyment of the Fife Whisky Festival has been ruined because they’ve not been able to purchase that one, limited, sought after bottle, our wee festival really isn’t the right whisky festival for them. Apologies if that sounds harsh but it’s neither what we’re about nor what we want to become.
Thanks to the hard work by Luvians, Lindores and Daftmill, we were able to offer not one but two festival bottlings this year. Even so, that came to a maximum of 326 festival bottles on sale, split equally across the two sessions. Those bottles were never advertised and details were only sent to ticket holders long after the festival had sold out. With over 650 attendees, the only system to allocate these bottles fairly was through a ballot on the day. And the only way we could think of to do that was through issuing everyone with a scratch card. Some attendees were lucky; some weren’t. This is life and there’s very little we can do to change that.
In addition, thanks to Luvians’ and Francis' kindness and generosity, a staggering sum in the region of £5,000 has been raised for Age Concern Cupar. This highlights exactly what we’re about and what we want to be. Anyone who considers their sense of entitlement to be more important than this should be wholly embarrassed of themselves.
From the huge, positive response we’ve received over the last couple of days, we know so many of you appreciate what we do and how we do it. And to you we say a massive thank you for all your support and we look forward to seeing you in 2023!