PIZZA & PROSECCO FESTIVAL

The weekend saw a couple of big events in Bristol, one Man Hunt and one Pizza & Prosecco Festival…

The day started with a briefing for the morning’s Man Hunt, run by CluedUpp. Our team of five gathered on Corn Street, Bristol to watch the introductory video one our designated smart phone for event number one – the Man Hunt. The Man Hunt is a nation-wide murder mystery event, held one city at a time, as a fabulously fun promotional accessory to the soon-to-be-released murder mystery movie Murder On The Orient Express. This is a fun event for all ages, and canine companions.

The ticketed event is run via an app and is all entirely digital. Teams of six, or less, are provided with a digital map that shows ‘witness points’. You have to travel around the city stopping at each of these points in order to gather vital information to solve the murder case – but it’s not as easy as that. You have to first earn the said information by answering a question on the app, with penalties of a one minute wait if you get the answers wrong. We found these questions mostly related to Bristol, being the city we were in, with a few general knowledge questions thrown in.

As well as a prize for the team quickest to solve the murder, there were also prizes for best team fancy dress… and some people really went the distance, even some adorably cute canines were dressed up in the appropriate attire. This did add to the fun of the game as you could spot other times a mile away.

It was really exciting to get going, and Storm Brian didn’t slow us down – wind, rain, bring it Brian. Our team did have a fabulous tactic to help us get through the miserable cold and wet weather; after collecting four or five witness statements we would head for the closest bar to read through the statements and think our way through the game… possibly with the added bonus of a drink in every bar.

I really am dying to mention one bar in Bristol – Christmas Steps. What a blogger/Instagrammer dream. It was like stepping onto Diagon Alley. A tall bar with three floors, all wooden and painted black, with a lovely, old, wooden and glass panelled front door. The building housed two bars, one just a step or two up from the initial floor, and another a few more steps up. Each floor was a little small, but very cute and very trendy, with long wooden tables and benches. It was absolutely lovely, and the drinks we pretty fabulous too.

CluedUpp did a really great job, with a few potential red-herring witnesses thrown into the mix. You could clearly see each witness’ position laid out on the app’s map, and once you arrived at a witness destination you could access their statement. This did mean a few moments of lingering in Storm Brian’s windy outbursts, but this didn’t curb the fun or our enthusiasm (though I think drinks were really helping here).

This event was such a fabulous way to see Bristol, especially if you’ve travelled to the big city just for the weekend. Each witness statement was in walking distance of another witness statement, which encouraged you to keep going. We walked around all the major parts of Bristol, seeing Bristol Cathedral, the Library, The Hippodrome, the Water Front, Millennium Square, and many other sights. Such a great day out, and with a brilliantly fun incentive. Plus, Bristol in autumn is completely magical.

A few hours gone and a little over-thinking aside, we did figure out the correct murder suspect and murder weapon fairly quickly, but running around Bristol gathering witness statements (stopping in bars) was far too much fun so we decided to finish the game properly before sitting down in The Lanes to submit our ‘guess’ and for some celebratory photo-booth snaps.   

Man Hunt finished, we headed straight to our second event – a Pizza & Prosecco Festival, housed in The Passenger Shed at Brunel’s Old Station. This event started at 2pm and curfew was 10pm, though we got there around 4pm due to our morning of walking around Bristol. Depot-Eats ran the event, and I must say they picked a fabulous venue; The Passenger Shed hold an array of events throughout the year, and is a huge building with a brilliant open space.

This event was also ticketed; we each paid £17 just to be let in through the front door, with one somewhat small welcome glass of sparkling pink prosecco. Hmm. On all of the marketing and advertising it read ‘prosecco to try’, and yet off we walked to the token booth to purchase our tokens. Each token was the equivalent of £3, yet each glass of prosecco and each prosecco cocktail required two tokens. The ticket booth would only let you buy tokens in ones, a pack of 5, or a pack of 11. I don’t think any of this was overly thought out, or maybe it was too well thought out………..

Anyway, tickets purchased and we began the long task of queuing for pizza. There were four pizza stands within the venue, two of which allowed you to buy whole wood-fired pizzas, the third allowed you to buy just slices or calzone wraps, and the fourth we missed entirely. As it was far more cost effective to buy a whole pizza (and we’d not eaten all day) we split between two wood-fired vans. I opted for a goat’s cheese, caramelised onion, and spinach pizza – and it was well worth the wait. The dough was all pre-prepped, and as it rises the longer you leave it this was more beneficial than detrimental. The dough was stretched in front of you, and all of the toppings were added to order. Fresh fresh fresh.

The incredible amount of tables and benches were already all taken by the time we arrived, the event was packed. The atmosphere was absolutely amazing, everyone was having such a fabulous time – and surrounded by pizza and prosecco, why wouldn’t you. We made ourselves comfortable near the stage, on the carpeted floor, and were soon followed by lots of others who couldn’t find a table. The pizza stands were all running at different speeds, and so we all ended up eating one after another, but there were no complaints. We even considered going back for more.

There were live singers and bands throughout the evening to keep everyone even more entertained, and the acts were all a great fit for the event. The stage was also brilliantly lit, and you could both see and hear the acts from all over the venue.

There we also a number of prosecco stands at the event. We went back and forth between The Tiny Tipple Van, who housed jars of the oddest fruit-flavoured balls, and a second prosecco stand who specialised in prosecco cocktails. The Tiny Tipple Van was a big favourite, and their odd concoction of tiny fruit-filled balls. These caviar-like balls sat at the bottom of a glass of prosecco, and burst in your mouth as you were drinking. Flavours were raspberry, peach, and strawberry – and we loved the raspberry and peach options. They had prosecco on tap rather than in the bottle, and to be honest this was a concept just as exciting as tiny flavoured balls.

The wait for prosecco was thankfully far shorter than that for pizzas, and we had no trouble in topping up our glasses. We certainly made use of our pre-paid for drinks tokens as there were apparently over 22 flavours of prosecco to try; though I think we only tried four flavours each throughout the evening. Some of the prosecco stands also sold prosecco by the (expensive) bottle.

The toilets are always an issue at big events, with lines for the ladies always being far longer than lines for the gents, and so naturally we took over both toilets – highly encouraged by the chaps I must admit! The toilets were at least real toilets, not portable ones, and were pretty amazing by event standards. Though once you’ve spent over half an hour lining up for pizza you really don’t want to be in another long, long line… thankfully we found a third somewhat hidden gents toilet near our seated area on the floor, and we snuck in here as and when.

Our favourite part of the pizza and prosecco festival had to be making friends in the storage cupboard. Another group of ladies had somehow stumbled into a fairly large storage cupboard and come across some inflated pizza slices. Why these weren’t already out and about on the floor I do not know! The security guards were having none of it however, so as soon as they thought these ladies had been defeated they turned their backs and foolishly wandered off. We immediately chased after the girls into the storage cupboard for a fabulous inflatable photo shoot. In the end the security guards gave in and ended up taking group photos for us.

Overall, one magnificent day and evening in Bristol; lots of walking around and taking in the beautiful autumnal sights, lots of laughter, lots of pizza, even more prosecco, and we then topped it all off with a little nap on the sofa before glamming up and heading out onto the town. I’m hugely keen to get to a few more exciting events like these, so if anyone is venturing to any do let me know in the comments below – I may tag along!

Claudia xo