ONE Worcester resident will be raising his glass to celebrate his creative talent after winning a competition to design the logo for the city’s annual beer, cider and perry festival.

Richard Webb, from Worcester, was one of 16 entrants given free rein to produce an eye-catching logo for this year’s Worcester CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) Beer, Cider and Perry Festival taking place on Pitchcroft, Worcester, in August.

The only stipulation from Worcester CAMRA was that the festival horse, which has appeared on all of the festival logos since the event has been held on Worcester racecourse, had to be included in the logo.

The competition, launched in February, was open to any members of the public who had to bear in mind that the winning logo needed to be suitable for use on marketing material, T-shirts, souvenir glasses and beer mats.

Festival publicity officer Bill Ottaway said it was the first year in the festival’s 18-year history that they had run a competition to design the logo. In every other year a member of the festival committee had produced the artwork.

The entries were judged by the festival committee and Bill said it was a very close run contest and a difficult job to find a clear winner.

“We were very surprised with the entries. It was clear a lot of people had put in a huge amount of effort and time into designing their entries. The standard was very high.

“At the start we were only planning to give prizes to the outright winner and the runners-up but when we saw the quality of the entries it was decided to give everyone a prize. Everyone it getting a ticket to the festival apart from one.

“One of the entries was from 10-year-old Lucy Rushton and she can get into the festival free anyway so we will have to find something else for her prize.”

He said each year they try and have a theme for the festival logo and link it to another major event like the Olympics in 2012 or the Three Choirs Festival when it’s in Worcester. Last year the logo showed a WWI soldier as Britain marked the Battle of the Somme.

This year the main element was the festival horse and Bill praised Lucy for her entry which showed the horse, wearing a snorkel, swimming in a glass of beer as Pitchcroft is on the river floodplain and well known for flooding.

“Personally, I like the winning entry because it has a bit of a fun element to it, it cries out festival and it’s in a similar style to a beer pump clip. I also like that the image brings together both the beer and the cider/perry sides of the festival with a glass of each.”

The popular Worcester CAMRA festival is back for its 18th year but at the later date of August 17-19 to fit in with this year’s racing schedule on Pitchcroft racecourse.

Inside the large marquee will be the longest bar in the country serving more than 170 ales, more than 100 ciders and perries plus fruit and grape wines. Food offers will include burgers, fish and chips, kebabs, Mexican and curries. There will be musical entertainment provided on Thursday and Friday evening and from the early afternoon on Saturday.

The festival is set up and run by volunteers without which the festival could not go ahead. To join the festivals family of volunteers visit https://www.worcesterbeerfest.org.uk/volunteer.

Volunteers can camp on site and receive food and drinks as well as having the opportunity to go on an all paid for volunteer’s excursion.