Festival Description

The Bent and Bongs Charitable Trust, in association with CAMRA, present the 33rd Bent and Bongs Beer Bash, February 1 - 3, 2024.


Dates and Times

Opening times for the 2024 festival are:



Thursday 1 February 6pm - 11pm £3
Friday 2 February 4pm - 11pm £6
Saturday 3 February 12pm - 9pm £6


Entry to the beer festival is pay-on-the-door only. There are no advance tickets other than those for sponsors.



Venue

Venue: Atherton Roller Rink.

Rail - Atherton station
From the station walk down to the lights. Turn right and follow the road until you see Asda on the left. The Roller Rink is next to Asda.

Buses
For details of local bus routes please see our more detailed How To Find Us page.


Beers

It's an absolute belter. Go nuts: The 2024 Beerlist

A word of caution. Some of the beers this year are way strong. Proper big lads. Treat them with the respect they deserve. At 7% ABV to 8% ABV you are getting on to something that is possibly twice as strong as your usual pint. 9% ABV and above are positively lethal. These beers taste amazing but sip them slowly and enjoy them. Respect the big beers!


Music and Entertainment

Live entertainment at all sessions.

The bands lined up for 2024 are:

Thursday night Just Giorge
A fabulous singer, songwriter, and all round entertainer.

Friday night Raspberry Glam
Glam it up folks with your platfoms, flares, and all things sparkly.

Saturday (early afternoon - ish) Run out the Guns
High energy folk, Irish, and traditional sea shanty band.

Saturday (late afternoon - ish) The Parpenrifters
A brass band with a bit of ummmmmpfh-pa-pa.

Saturday (evening - ish) DJs Steve Pownall and Dave Manny
Closing the bash with Northern Soul classics to keep the party going right to the very end.



Food and Festival Fodder

There will be heaps of yummy food at all sessions.


Back for 2024 - hot pot and Bury black puddings. Yummy yummy get in my tummy.


New To The Festival - Getting Your First Pint

When you enter the festival we will give you your souvenir glass.

We can't stress this enough. Look after your glass. Your glass is your drinking vessel for the whole session and is yours to keep when you head for home. Treat your glass as your friend. Hold it carefully. Keep it out of harm's way. There are no spare glasses kept behind the bars so when you turn up for a drink you need your glass.

Remember! No glass = no beer!

Do not put your glass on the barrier around the rink itself. It's too easy for it to be knocked off and break. A broken glass means no glass. Remember! No glass = no beer!

The festival runs on a token system. To buy beer you must first buy tokens.

The token desk is at the end of the roller rink where you came in.

Once you have your tokens, head for your bar of choice. Please do not try to use cash. The bar staff cannot accept it and will send you to the token desk to buy tokens.

Remember! No tokens = no beer!

Payment for tokens is cash, card, or contactless.

The token desk will cash in any unused tokens at the end of the night. N.B. Tokens are valid only on the day you buy them. They do not roll over from one day to the next.


The rink is organised into 5 bars:

- Ciders and Perrys
- Real Ales
- Craft Corner
- Belgium, Foreign, and Fruit Beers
- Gin and Prosecco

The real ales are organised alphabetically by brewery so when looking for the beer of your choice just follow the letters.


Sponsor the Festival

If you are interested in sponsoring the festival full details are available on our 2024 sponsors page

Photography

Enormous thanks to the photographers who volunteered their time for 2024. You are all brilliant.

Ryan Bowen of R-Bowen Photography insta: @ryanbowen98

Ian Fletcher of ISFPhotography web: ISFPhotography.co.uk

The fantastic, amazing, and all round gentleman David Featherstone who also donates so much time as Atherton Colls' official photographer.


Keep Me Informed

The best way by far to hear about future festivals is to subscribe to our email list. We won't spam you. We won't share your email address. You'll get a handful of emails a year mostly around the time of the festival.

Sign-up here: Opt-in to the Bent and Bongs Email List

On social we are:
Facebook
Twitter/X: @bentnbongs
... but we have absolutely no control over whether these platforms keep you up to date with anything we post.

We also run a blog at blog.bentnbongs.com.

We seem to have adopted the hashtag #bentnbongs for chatter about the festival.

If you're a time travelling historian from the future and want to look back at previous festivals the details for the 2023 festival are saved here for posterity.

 

Please send all comments or suggestions to webmaster@bentnbongs.com