AN award-winning craft festival is gearing up to celebrate its 20th anniversary this year
Craft Festival Bovey Tracey will return to Mill Marsh Park in the town from June 7 to 9 and is hoping to break new records as it celebrates its china anniversary.
Over those 20 years close on 150,000 visitors have been welcomed to the event and locality and it has provided a £25 million boost to the regional economy. Also across the two decades 4000 professional makers have selected to exhibit and there have been in excess of 15,000 free local school pupil educational visits.
Craft Festival is a non-profit making, female founded organisation with a reputation for curating and hosting the finest designer maker events in the UK. Its founder Sarah James was made an MBE for services to craft in King Charles’ Birthday Honours List 2023.
This summer the multi award-winning contemporary craft event will welcome over 200 professional maker businesses to exhibit, each chosen for their quality and originality by an independent selection panel.
Craft Festival Bovey Tracey this year will include more craft demonstrations than ever before, plus talks and wellbeing workshops in ‘Out of the Woods’ its popular woodworking showcase.
Also, the new business section Start-UP will return, plus craft workshops for adults, free craft activities for children, talks, film screenings, all set in gorgeous parkland accompanied by a soundtrack of live music and delicious street food by local specialists.
Partner organisations returning to the event this year include Heritage Crafts, Design Nation and MAKE Southwest.
‘Craft Festival and MAKE Southwest both champion the best craft in the south west. Craft Festival creates a retail platform for makers from across the UK, whatever their background, young graduates, and those changing careers later in life.’ said Laura Wasley, chief executive, of founding partners MAKE Southwest.
‘We’re marking the 20th anniversary of Craft Festival with a complementary exhibition ‘20 Years in the Making’ at MAKE Southwest to showcase twenty award- winning makers from the Festival over the years, will running until June 22.’
