Wednesday 19 June 2013

Shrewsbury Food Festival

Message from Andy Richardson, organiser of

SHREWSBURY FOOD FESTIVAL
29th & 30th June


Dear all

We're just over a week away from the inaugural Shrewsbury Food Festival. It will take place on June 29 and 30 in The Quarry and around town. So far, preparations for the event have exceeded expectation. The festival had hoped to attract 70 exhibitors - in fact, 130 will be present on June 29 and 30 and organisers we applications from a further 30.

As we near the date of our event, I trust you won't mind me emailing you. While not all of you will be able to attend, I hope some will be able to forward this email to other contacts so as to increase the likelihood of a good crowd. For those who work in large corporate organisations, or councils, we'd be grateful if you could forward this information to your intranet or similar communications system. we're keen to let as many people as possible know about the event - our marketing campaign will have failed if there are people who, on july 1, say: 'that sounded like it was really good, i wish i'd known about it'.

The event will feature celebrity chef demonstrations from the likes of Will Holland (La Becasse, James Martin's Saturday Kitchen, BBC Great British Menu) and Marcus Bean (ITV This Morning, Channel 4 What's Cooking, Brompton Cookery School at Attingham, BBC Good Food Show), plus many more. They will feature on the Wenlock Spring Chef Demonstration Stage.

There will be a children's education marquee, sponsored by Darwin Matthews, which will provide educational activities and fun things for youngsters.

Live music will be on site in the form of #ShropshireUnsigned, which is being sponsored by The Armoury. It will feature plenty of local bands, all keen to play to an audience of thousands.

There will also be a bursary area, sponsored by Rowlands, which will provide a shop window for small artisan businesses. Additionally, there will be numerous craft stands, talks and demonstrations and much, much more.

The event will be opened by Boycie, from Only Fools And Horses, at 10am on June 29 and will continue that day until 6pm. It will run from 10am to 5pm on June 30.

The event will provide community benefit: we are providing free-of-charge stands to a number of good causes, such as Fair Trade, and have developed other partnerships with not-for-profit concerns. The organisers also plan to make a donation to a local school, so that it can build a market garden as part of an on-going Shrewsbury Food Festival educational programme.

The organisers have been supported by more than 60 volunteers from the town, who will help to manage the weekend's activities. The event aims to support independent businesses in Shrewsbury and many restaurants, bars and food shops are taking part. It is estimated that the event will generate more than £100,000 for the local economy. We have received support from a number of local businesses and other organisations, for which we are extremely grateful.

All it needs now is your support - please tell colleagues, forward this email to as many people as possible and make people aware that on June 29 and 30 we'll be glad to host each and every one of you. Admission is deliberately low - tickets are a tenner for families, a fiver for adults or a quid for kids under 16. Children at local primary schools will be given coupons, so that they can attend free of charge. Tickets are available now and can be booked at www.shrewsburyfoodfestival.co.uk. Free programmes are also available at that website.

Word of mouth will be the event's strongest ally in its first year - so we'd be enormously grateful if you'd distribute this email to others, so that people are aware that the Shrewsbury Food Festival takes place on June 29 and 30 at The Quarry.

We've paid for 15,000 free programmes, 10,000 of which have been distributed around town. We've also paid for around 30,000 A5 flyers, in addition to banners and similiar. We put 5,000 free tickets into local primary schools. We're in it for the long term - The Quarry is booked to 2015 for future events - and the intention is that it will run for several decades.

Book your tickets now at www.shrewsburyfoodfestival.co.uk and we hope to see you there.

Andy and Beth


--   Yoland Brown  Brownhill House B&B, Ruyton XI Towns, nr. Shrewsbury SY4 1LR  ShACC - Shropshire Alternative Car Club  www.eleventowns.co.uk  www.eleventowns.com  www.ShACC-uk.org  Tel:  01939 261 121       Fax:  01939 260626