October 11, 2024
Whilst we work away behind the scenes to ensure 2025 is our best year yet, we have an important festival update to share with you for next year’s festival.
The pre-concert picnic experience in the East Front Gardens is a highlight for many and for us to be able to continue to allow festival-goers to bring their own champagne or wine into the event, we will be introducing a Garden Corkage Pass for next year’s festival.
Only one Garden Corkage Pass is required per booking and will enable those ticket holders within the booking to bring bottles of their favourite champagne or wine into the festival to enjoy with their picnics. Beers, spirits and other alcoholic drinks will not be permitted into the grounds. All visitors may still bring soft drinks, water and picnic food with them to the festival, however, we ask that you avoid bringing them in single use plastic containers where possible. A wide selection of drinks will be available at our Festival Bars and water refill stations will also be located on the East Front. Please note: No drinks are permitted inside the Palace and the Garden Corkage Pass is for the East Front Gardens only.
The Garden Cork Pass is available to purchase online in advance for a set fee of £12. This fee is per booking and will relate to all ticket holders on your booking. Please note if you chose to purchase your Garden Corkage Pass upon entry to the event, it will be £16.50 per entry group.
We have made the decision to introduce this Pass for a number of reasons – not only will it help us to implement our Responsible Drinking Policy, it will also help us to mitigate rising production costs and work towards creating a more sustainable festival. Rather than restricting all alcohol entering the festival, we felt it was important to continue to have a BYO option and hope you will be supportive of this new initiative.
We’re proud to be one of the few festivals that allow attendees to bring their own food and drink, and this small levy will help us continue to deliver Hampton Court Palace Festival at the highest possible standard.
Thanks in advance for your support, and we look forward to welcoming you all again next June!