Alchohol at Exhibitions

mrsingh

Hi All,

Just a quick question for anyone who's ever exhibited at an exhibition; do you require any sort of alcohol licence if you are merely offering samples of wine or beer? There would be no sales of alcohol at all either on the day or after the event, its purely for research purposes.

Any advice or experiences shared is appreciated!

browneyedbazzi

If people are paying you for entry to the exhibition and then are given the samples of alcohol the payment for entry is considered payment for the alcohol as well (making it a sale) so it does require a licence.

If entry to the exhibition is by paid ticket, but you don't receive any of the money that people have paid to get in (either directly or indirectly), or entry is completely free then you don't need a licence.

LutonGirl

There should be a section in your "Exhibitor Manual" from the organisers about alcohol. If not, you should query it with the organiser. I worked at an exhibition once where we gave away wine in sealed bottles with special product labels on them and we had to declare it to the organiser even if we weren't "serving" or "selling" it.

mrsingh

browneyedbazzi wrote: »

If people are paying you for entry to the exhibition and then are given the samples of alcohol the payment for entry is considered payment for the alcohol as well (making it a sale) so it does require a licence.

If entry to the exhibition is by paid ticket, but you don't receive any of the money that people have paid to get in (either directly or indirectly), or entry is completely free then you don't need a licence.

Thanks for that info - I will confirm with any exhibit organisers. I'm pretty sure that I wouldnt need a licence based on the above as I will not personally be holding the exhibition or charging for it, I will just be there as an exhibitor to offer free samples to get an idea on peoples tastes - research purposes only

gayleygoo

Are you making the wine/beer yourself? If so then I'm fairly certain you can't even give it away to the general public. You need licenses for production and sale of homebrew which cost a lot of money... except cider, which you can produce for sale without a license but can't sell to the public without a public license, and the food hygiene people will want you registered so they can keep an eye on things, even if it's just samples.

If it's commercially produced stuff then I'm sorry for the above useless information, as I'm not too sure how the law goes on commercialized alcoholic drinks!

Brassedoff

Check with the organisers, they may have a license that covers you. Or failing that, browneyedbazzi advice is top notch!