London Cocktail Week: 1st – 31st October, 2021
With a theme of ‘Resilience’ and a strapline that reads “Throw anything at us and we survive. We can take it all. Even balanced so precariously we continue to stand tall“, London Cocktail Week’s (LCW) organisers have announced festival dates for 2021.
All things being equal, given the vaccine rollout is progressing with a speed and competence uncharacteristic of Boris Johnson’s government, and Covid infection rates are falling like a stone, we should be in a better place come October. Bars which have been shuttered for a year will be hoping the second half of 2021 is notable for the amount of money that newly-liberated customers are spending, and so the focus of LCW will be to drive as much footfall into bars as possible. To that end, there will be no Cocktail Village this year, with the festival concentrating on in-venue events and cocktail tours.
LCW co-owners and organisers Hannah Sharman-Cox and Siobhan Payne describe their plan: “We all hoped that by this time in 2021, the industry would be in a much more positive position, however, the situation for our bars has only become more and more serious. So, once again, we want to step up to the responsibility of what London Cocktail Week can do for our city – it is our duty to use our platform to help rebuild our incredible trade.”
The desire to generate business for London’s bars is also behind the decision to again extend the festival’s run time to one month, an easy decision given that 96% of visitors polled last year said that Cocktail Week should remain a month-long festival. Time for a name change?
We will bring you more details on the 2021 London Cocktail Week programme as they are released. For now, block out October in your diary, and allow yourself the luxury of daydreaming about a night on the town, INSIDE cocktails bars with your industry mates.