For the first time, participating venues will be able to keep all of the revenue from selling the £15 festival wristbands, which will be provided to the bars free.
“We wanted to have a way of giving back to the bars that we work with,” Siobhan Payne, co-founder of London Cocktail Week, told Drinks International. “For us, an easy way of doing that was to let the bars sell the wristbands and keep 100% of the revenue.
“And it helps us to reach a new consumer because the bars will be selling the wristbands to their best customers which, in turn will help the wider bar community as their best customers discover other bars in the area.”
The festival will also launch the Bartender Knowledge Exchange, an educational platform with a focus on experiential learning.
LCW has partnered with host venues to provide back-of-house pre-shift tours, The Seat at The Bar – a bookable experience allowing bartenders to sit and watch the host bar in action – and exclusive tastings and talks with bar owners and managers.
“We’re now in our 14th year of the festival and as such we’re heading into a new era of what the festival means and needs to be,” said Payne.
“We’re one of the original cocktail weeks and we’re one of the biggest cocktail weeks, so we wanted to use that platform to bolster the bar industry that we love so much and give London Cocktail Week a reason for existing for the next 14 years.”
Takeover programme
As always, the festival hosts a programme of national and international takeovers, offering guests the opportunity to experience bars and their drinks from all corners of the globe.
London Cocktail Week 2023 takes place across the capital from 12-22 October.
