SIBA celebrates highest BeerX attendance since launch

SIBA's flagship event, along with its AGM, included a brewing supplier exhibition, a programme of seminars, debates and key note speakers; SIBA's national Brewing and Business awards; and the showcase of award-winning SIBA beers, BeerAlive!. ​

SIBA's operations director Nick Stafford said: "I would like to thank everybody who attended this year's BeerX event.

“It is great to see how BeerX has grown in the past five years since we launched the concept.

“It is important that SIBA organises an exciting event for independent brewers to learn more about brewing and the independent brewing industry and have the opportunity to network with the rest of the membership - brewing and suppliers. I think we achieved that."

This year saw an “impressive” turnout with delegate attendance up by 59% compared to last year, with SIBA members visiting up by 69% (Brewing and Supplier Associate members).

Stafford continued: "SIBA understands how hard it can be for a very small business to find time out from brewing to visit a trade show.

“For this reason, we created a programme of events packed into two days, offering real value for money." 

Trade stand sales increased by 19% at the event, with 148 exhibiting businesses present and the BeerAlive!​ consumer event experiencing an 11% increase on the previous year's beer festival footfall. 

"Due to SIBA's growing number of Supplier Associate members, which now stands at over 300, we had a huge demand for space at the BeerX exhibition,” Stafford said.

“So, to cater for this, we doubled the space available. We have had mixed feedback so far on this new concept with some suppliers loving the additional space and some feeling the event was too spread out. 

“We will take the next few weeks to digest everyone's comments and make sure the 2018 event is even better than this year."