Although states are opening up from lockdowns, state governments remain cautious, which has led to events across the country being postponed or going online, the latest being GABS.

Festival organisers have said that the events in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney are now being deferred to 2021. Dates were initially moved to October and November this year.

Listen to the special Beer is a Conversation podcast with GABS Festival organisers Mike Bray and Craig Williams to hear firsthand about their decision.

Articles published under the media release byline are news produced by the relevant business and remain unedited by Brews News. This release was circulated by GABS Craft Beer & Cider Festival.

On behalf of all the team at GABS, we want to sincerely thank all of our fans, partners, exhibitors, brewers and vendors for your patience over these recent months. This year truly has taken us all on a journey, and we’ve greatly appreciated your support and understanding throughout this time. We know you’ve been waiting to hear whether our events will be proceeding and we are now in a position to provide an update.

Since postponing our Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney festivals to late 2020, our team has worked tirelessly with our venues, key contractors, and State health authorities to develop COVID Safe festival formats that promised to deliver the experience and attendance that our patrons, partners, exhibitors and vendors expect at the country’s premier craft beer event.

As you can imagine this has been a significant challenge, with each city currently at very different ‘states of play’ in terms of social distancing restrictions and border arrangements, and we want to thank you for your tremendous patience and understanding as we worked through this process to confirm an outcome on all three Australian festivals.

While GABS Melbourne was unfortunately not going to be able to go ahead due to the current restrictions, we had high anticipation for our GABS Brisbane and Sydney events in November still proceeding, and wanted to ensure we gave them every opportunity to go ahead.

While both these states are now able to host events of up to 1,000 attendees, and all indications are that restrictions will be further relaxed by late November, we unfortunately have simply run out of time to commission over a hundred unique Festival Beers & Ciders, and be able to confidently say to you, our fans, that we will be able to deliver the GABS Festival experience we have all grown to love.

As such, we will be deferring all events to 2021 on the dates below.

2021 Event Dates

• GABS Brisbane: Sat 17 April
• GABS Sydney: Fri 7 – Sat 8 May (introducing a new Friday session)
• GABS Melbourne: Fri 21 – Sun 23 May (concluding Good Beer Week)
• GABS Auckland: Sat 3 July

What does this mean for you?

Paid Ticket Holders. All current paid ticket holders for our 2020 events will have received an email (via Eventbrite) outlining options to convert to a GABS Tickets and Beer Voucher, which includes tickets for an equivalent ticket to any GABS 2021 event and session, PLUS a free tasting paddle of five beers on us as a thank you for your ongoing support. If preferred, you can just hold onto your ticket and it will still be valid for the GABS 2021 dates or you can request a refund. If you are a paid ticket holder and have not received this email, please let us know at contact@gabs.beer.

Complimentary Ticket Holders. If you have redeemed a complimentary ticket for GABS 2020, or have yet to redeem a complimentary ticket code, you will be emailed a new ticket code one week before tickets for GABS 2021 go on sale in February. This code will allow you to redeem a new complimentary ticket for any GABS 2021 event or session.

Partners / Exhibitors / Vendors. All GABS 2020 partners, exhibitors and food vendors will have received an email from our team outlining options to secure your position at the GABS 2021 events on the new dates. We will be in touch with you over the coming week to discuss further. Please do reach out to us at contact@gabs.beer for any further information.

Festival Beer & Cider Brewers. All GABS 2020 Festival Beer & Cider brewers will have also received an email from our team. With our event dates moving back to our traditional window, we’ll be launching Festival Beer & Cider registrations for GABS 2021 in late January. First preference will be given to those breweries and cidermakers that registered a Festival Beer & Cider for GABS 2020.

We’d love to continue the journey with you as we work towards GABS 2021, and what we anticipate will be an incredible series of craft beer festivals across the country.