The Eat Drink and Be Local Food Festival Week was a great success, with the dinners and events that took place at various venues throughout the week.
The Petit Train Food and Drink Safaris were a sell out and the feedback from those that went on them was tremendous. The venues that took part really enjoyed hosting the ‘passengers’ and have reported that they have already experienced repeat business. Great news all round and something we will look to repeat in the future.
Sadly, due to the high winds we experienced last week, and are still enjoying, the decision had to be made to cancel the Finale Two-Day Food Festival, which was due to take place on the Crown Pier on Saturday and Sunday.
It was incredibly disappointing that we had to make the decision, however the safety of our stall holders, food concessions and the general public had to be our primary concern. The build of the marquees and the music stage was due to start on the Friday afternoon, but with predicted winds of gale force 6-7, we were advised by Event Services they would be right on the safety limit to build the structures and the stage. With overnight forecasts on Saturday and into Sunday stating that the wind was due to rise to a gale force 9, everything would have to have been taken down, leaving us with no set up at all for the Sunday event.
The decision was made early to give enough notice to our stall holders and food concessions to limit any expenses that they would have incurred, and to make sure that no product was wasted. We have had fantastic support from a wide range of stall holders over our four Seafront Sundays this year and we very much look forward to working with them all again in the 2020 season.
Support from local bands and musicians has been fantastic, and we look forward to seeing them perform again next season.
I would also like to thank the EDABL Committee for all their hard work behind the scenes in putting the Festival week together. We plan to build on our experience this season and have lots of new ideas for the EDABL 2020 programme of events. Let the planning commence.
