The International Beatle Week is an annual Beatles festival that began in Liverpool (where else?) in 1981. (See www.cavern-liverpool.co.uk/beatleweek/index.htm.) We timed our trip to Liverpool such that we would arrive on Day 3 of the festival, the day of the Beatle Convention at the Adelphi Hotel.
We were flying into Heathrow that day and from the airport, it was a coach ride to London Victoria, and then another coach ride to Liverpool. The tire burst on our five-hour trip to Liverpool, so we lost an hour waiting for a back-up coach to arrive.
We arrived at Liverpool at around 7pm, checked into our hostel (the International Inn - a clean, socially-conscious hostel), exchanged pleasantries with one of our roommates, and then headed right out for a yummy dinner, and then to catch the last few hours of the Beatles Convention. Because we arrived so late, each of us was charged only five quid to enter the convention hall, rather than the usual 15 GBP.
Somehow I had gotten it into my head that the Beatle Convention would be crowded with rowdy drunk youngsters, but when we arrived at the Adelphi Hotel, we found that we were among the youngest there! Most of the convention visitors were our parents' age! Many of them were in Beatles T-shirts, some were sporting hippie hair-do's; a group of four women in their late fifties were in costume, with beehive hairdo's, mini-dresses, and boots. There where many mothers with their adult daughters, fathers with their adult sons, and a few who had both their children and grandchildren with them as well!
In the Convention area, we browsed through tables and tables of Beatles memorabilia - old records, newspaper clippings, magazines, books, pins, shirts, Sgt. Pepper costumes, artwork, photographs.... extremely cool.
In one room, a video screen had been set up to show old video footage of the Beatles. Beatles cover bands performed simultaneously in two rooms: the scheduled performers on the main stage, and an "open mic" on a smaller stage a few rooms away.
We got a kick out of watching the bands, as well as the audience! When one of the cover bands started playing "As My Guitar Gently Weeps" two married couples in front of us - probably in their forties or fifties - started dancing seductively, while another middle-aged couple started making out passionately like teenagers (this was quite cool for awhile, but when there were still at it four songs later, it began to get a little icky). A group of bald men beside us sang along loudly to "Norwegian Wood" raising and waving their beer glasses to the beat of the song.
We headed back to the hostel at around 11pm.
The Beatle Festival takes place every year in August, but the city fills up very quickly so book early. There are options for all budgets: you can buy complete hotel packages from Cavern City Tours (+44 151 236 9091), or find your own accommodation and buy tickets to individual events.