Gin worth over £50k to be auctioned after festival company goes bust

Over 1,200 bottles of gin worth more than £50,000 will go under the hammer today following the collapse of Gin Festival Limited, an events company which fell into administration last month after failing to find a buyer.

The gin, including brands such as Harrogate-based Slingsby, Spanish-style gin Tinker and Yorkshire’s Masons gin, will be sold at Eddisons CJM auctioneers in North Lincolnshire.

The sale also includes large quantities of mixers including tonic water as well as bar equipment and other festival paraphernalia.

Gin Festival Limited went into administration in July after efforts to find a buyer for the business failed, meaning that 20 shows, in locations including Norwich, Sandown, Worcester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Lincoln, Portsmouth, London, Wakefield, St Albans, Sheffield, Oxford, Edinburgh and Leicester, were cancelled.

Buyers of 20,000 advance tickets were left out of pocket while all 27 members of staff were made redundant.

Administrators Julian Pitts and Nick Reed of insolvency specialists Begbies Traynor have sent the firm’s remaining assets to be auctioned.

Eddisons CJM director Paul Cooper said: “The Gin Festival premises in West Yorkshire have had to be cleared, which is why the remaining assets have been moved to our auction centre in Scunthorpe for the online sale on Monday (13 August.)

“The auction will see over 1,200 bottles of craft gin going under the hammer, some of which sold for more than £40 a bottle. We calculate the total retail value to be in excess of £50,000, and I imagine considerably more than that at festival prices.”

“We have divided most of the gins into practical lots of two to six bottles so that members of the public can get involved in the bidding as well as trade buyers. Everything in the auction is being sold without reserve, so it will make what it makes.”

“We’re also auctioning huge quantities of mixers. We reckon we have something over seven thousand bottles of those and they are obviously being sold in larger quantities

“We have also been instructed to dispose of all the festival furnishings and equipment that the company used to stage events around the country. That ranges across everything from optics boards, travelling bars and bar equipment, through sound system kit and event fencing, to pallet trucks and the large flight cases that were used for transportation. We’ve even got their ‘selfie stand’ and camera.

“Whilst it is not as headline-grabbing as the gin, the equipment lots are actually the most valuable in the auction and are expected to raise a considerable part of the final total”.

Over 350 lots will feature at the auction and the catalogue can be viewed here. The online sale, being held on the Bidspotter platform, will close at 6pm.