OVER this past weekend, more than 5,000 visitors attended Tavistock?s inaugural Food and Drink Festival where the 42 regional food and drink exhibitors enjoyed what they described as ? . . . a successful sell-out festival . . .? .
As the festival chairman I would like to thank all advertisers, exhibitors and visitors for their participation and support and especially Dartmoor National Park and West Devon Borough Council for their faith in financially underwriting our inaugural festival.
Tavistock Business Association must also thank all those local volunteers from Round Table, 31 Club, Rotary Club of Tavistock, the mayor and staff of Tavistock Town Council and West Devon Borough Council, friends and family who gave so freely of their time both before and during the festival. A special thanks to Peter Gorton from the Horn of Plenty who organised a hugely popular food demonstration programme of local celebrity chefs throughout the festival.
We can only measure our success by the overwhelmingly positive reactions of the visitors and exhibitors. Importantly, exhibitors have unanimously supported our aim of making this an annual event with our second festival already booked for July 30 and 31 2005.
Thanks also to the press and media who were good enough to give us excellent publicity and coverage, which was so important in making the public aware of our festival.
Finally a very special thanks to my festival committee who helped plan and implement the festival. They have worked tirelessly throughout the build up to the festival. Without them the seed of an idea would not have germinated.
Thank you everyone.
Jeffrey F Stackhouse
Festival chairman