The Royal Welsh Spring Festival, being held at the showground in Llanelwedd on 16 and 17 May, has fast become one of the most popular weekend-long events in the spring show season.
A celebration of rural life, the two-day festival, with its action-packed programme of entertainment and educational activities, free workshops, displays and main ring performances offers the perfect family day out.
The festivals roots have always very firmly been smallholding, gardening and sustainable living and over the years the event has evolved and embraced a wide range of activities and attractions with something to interest everyone.
Continually developing and expanding, the ‘new look’ Spring Festival for 2015 will have an increased emphasis on smallholding. The new dedicated Smallholders Centre, located in the South Glamorgan Exhibition Hall, has been designed specifically to cater for up-and-running and aspiring smallholders.
Whether you are after some advice, a piece of machinery, some information on buying a property or a new chicken, the Smallholder Centre is the place for you.
Packed full of with tradestands, stock, feed companies, advisory bodies, farming sundries, machinery, smallholder magazines and publications, a property roadshow, pet exhibition, talks, demonstrations, advice clinics and our ‘getting started’ stand, you’ll find everything for the smallholder in one place.
A regular tradestand holder, Chris Butcher from Oxdale Products Ltd, is looking forward to this year’s festival. “Last year’s Spring Festival was a great show for us. It was our fifth time at the event, the sun was shining and it was the best year to date in terms of business and interest shown by the many visitors.”
The support for the festival from the farming community has been excellent. With an ever increasing number of livestock entries, over 1,300 last year, the range of farm animals, many of which are traditional or rare breeds, on display over the weekend is exceptional.
This year a third sheep judging ring has been introduced to accommodate the increasing number of classes. We have also introduced a new ‘Have a Go’ class in the sheep section where visitors on the day can come along, get some advice from an experienced stockman and take a turn at showing a sheep - you might even win a rosette.
There are also new classes in the pig and goat sections, and a display of Bagot goats on the Coleg Cambria stand makes the festival one of the only places in the UK where you can see the whole goat family together.
“We are really putting the emphasis back on smallholding at this year’s Spring Festival.” explains Kay Spencer, the Spring Festival Honorary Director. “We understand the importance of the events core visitors and exhibitors and are committed to ensure that the festival lives up to its reputation as the number one event for smallholding, gardening and sustainable living.”
