Festival will be the last as thriving farmers’ market indicates the job is done
ORGANISERS of Nailsea’s popular eat:Festival have confirmed that this weekend’s event will be the last they will run in the town. Scores of producers are set to pack into the town centre on Saturday for it.
The first eat:Festival was held in Nailsea in 2019 as part of a partnership between the town council and Somerset Farmers’ Market. The eat:Festival team stepped in after concerns the farmers’ market – then at Collier’s Walk – was not attracting enough footfall to the town.
The eat:Festival, which is held twice a year, worked with the town council and Somerset Farmers’ Market to secure the necessary licences to move the event into Crown Glass Shopping Centre and High Street. This October, the festival expanded further, using part of the Link Road for stalls.
However, following discussions, December’s eat:Nailsea and forthcoming farmers’ markets, which are held once a month, will not use the Link Road again and will instead expand into the Crown Glass Shopping Centre.
Despite the event moving out of Nailsea, eat:Festivals will continue to run in Portishead and Clevedon. The team, which runs a number of festivals across the South West, will also be setting ones up in Axminster and Bideford.
A spokesman for eat:Nailsea said: “When we were asked to work in Nailsea the farmers’ market was not performing as desired and there was a shop vacancy rate problem. We created a busy destination event for the town, worked alongside the town council to show them how to close the road and enabled the market to move to the High Street. We then brokered the deal with Somerset Farmers’ Markets to take on the farmers’ market.
“This has proved to be very successful and is the largest one they run. The vacancy rate has reduced and the market continues to thrive.
“The support of North Somerset Council, Nailsea Town Council and the Crown Glass Shopping Centre has been invaluable and very much appreciated. We feel that we achieved what was asked of us.”