Western Morning News (Saturday)
June 2022 date is announced for county show
DATES for the 2022 Devon County Show have been announced, with the public once again having to wait a little longer for the event.
The show, held at Westpoint near Exeter, traditionally takes place in the third week of May and marks the start of a busy agricultural show season in the Westcountry.
Along with many others, the 125th Devon County Show had to be cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic, but after a 26-month absence made its highly-anticipated return in July – making it one of only a handful of shows to go ahead in 2021 and welcoming around 60,000 visitors over three days.
Now the Devon County Agricultural Association (DCAA) has confirmed that the 2022 Devon County Show will be taking place from Thursday, June 30 to Saturday, July 2.
Show manager, Sam MackenzieGreen, said after “much consultation, discussion and reviewing” of the likely impact of Covid-19 during the winter and spring, the decision to schedule the show at the start of July for a further year was made to “mitigate any further risk posed by the pandemic”.
“By taking an early decision now, rather than next spring, we hope this will give our exhibitors and trade stands time to prepare and
we look forward to welcoming them to 126th Devon County Show in 2022,” she added.
It is anticipated that the show will return to its usual May dates in 2023.
In a change to proceedings for 2021, the DCAA opted to open the gates at Westpoint from Friday to Sunday rather than Thursday to Saturday, to spread the traditionally busy Saturday ‘family crowd’ over two days.
There was no grand parade prize-winning livestock in the main ring this year, in order to reduce the risk of crowd pinch points, while the food and drink pavilion was swapped for an outdoor alternative - enabling safer, socially distanced browsing of an array of local produce.
For further details of next year’s Devon County Show, please visit the website www.devoncountyshow.co.uk