Food festival off

Jan 9 2013 by Liam Murphy, Heswall News

THE Wirral Food and Drink Festival will not take place this year, its organisers have confirmed.

The popular event which was founded by volunteers had been struggling over the past couple of years with sponsorship and competition from other festivals and events.

Now the organisers have pulled the plug on the festival for 2013 but hope to find a way to bring it back next year.

One of the founders, Andrew Pimbley, whose farm hosts the festival said it was “very sad” that the popular event will not take place this year.

He added: "We're going to have a year off and re-think what the festival needs to be – we want to make sure we're doing it right."

He said issues such as weather have a massive effect on the success of the festival and poor conditions contributed to it losing money in 2011 and 2012.

The festival, which has been held at Mr Pimbley's farm in Bebington over the August bank holiday since it was set up in 2006, costs around £100,000 to run.

The downturn in the economy has meant sponsors have been harder to find, placing greater risk and pressure on the two days of the event.

Mr Pimbley said they are looking at bringing a revamped festival back in 2014 but it may look different to those held in previous years and be held at a different time of year to avoid competing with other events.

Past festivals have featured a wide variety of attractions such as cookery demonstrations, play areas for children and entertainment but the cost of these has mounted up and the event was set up when such festivals were relatively new.

The main feature of the event has always been the wide variety of food and drink producers selling premium local goods, which was its focus, but similar events have seen competition increase.

Mr Pimbley said: “We are going to look at whether we are doing it in the most effective way. We don't want to put the price up any more because we have always wanted it to be a buyers’ festival – it was set up by producers like ourselves to be the best kind of festival for both producers and consumers, hopefully creating a perfect buyers market.

“Hopefully we will come back in 2014 with a festival that ticks all the boxes but it is very sad to think we won't be having it this year."