NEXT weekend thousands of people will descend on the Royal Welsh Showground for the two-day Smallholder and Garden Festival.
The event, which takes place over the weekend of May 21 and 22, is becoming more popularly known as the Royal Welsh Spring Festival.
The Festival is remarkably successful and already draws up to 25,000 people to the Royal Welsh showground at Llanelwedd, Builth Wells, where it is firmly established as a family favourite with a programme full of interest and entertainment for people of all ages.
Key issues highlighted at the Spring Festival include the environment and sustainable living and Dr Fred Slater, the Festival chairman, believes it ‘ticks all the right boxes’, showcasing as it does a Green Horizons exhibition and featuring the smallholder lifestyle, both of which are subjects which have captured the public imagination.
Apart from such topical issues as conservation and the environment the Festival features a wealth of popular activities.
While catering especially for smallholders and gardeners, this year’s event – the eleventh to be run by the RWAS – will have a more extensive and varied programme than ever played out against the background of more than 300 agricultural and craft stands demonstrating and selling just about anything a smallholder or gardener might need.
Over 1,000 livestock will be on show, sheep, cattle, pigs, angora, dairy and pigmy goats. For the first time the event will also feature a traditional, rare and native cattle breeds competition to be judged by Adam Henson.
Among the main attractions will be dancing and a folk dance festival, farriery competitions, llamas and alpacas, a vintage machinery display, farmers markets in Wales and beekeeping displays by the Welsh Beekeepers Association.
One of the interesting features of the festival are the many workshops and talks and question and answer sessions on smallholding, horticultural, environmental and countryside matters and roadshows covering gardening and property, focussing mainly on rural properties ideal for those seeking an idyll from where to make a small country living.
A premier open dog show with over 1, 000 entries, a qualifier for Crufts, takes place during the festival and the main ring entertainment will include the exciting Mid Wales Axe Racing team, the Hawkesdrift Falconry, the Waldburg Shires and scurry driving. Gardeners should include a visit to the showground’s Floral Hall.
Auctions of vintage and classic tractors, engines and implements, literature and other collectibles will take place on the first day of the festival and auctions of poultry and poultry equipment and collectibles will follow on the second day.