Huge Harvest Success for Waterford City
The 2023 Waterford Harvest Festival attracted record crowds to the City over the weekend and the GIY team of organisers say the festival surpassed all expectations.
Shona Dubois and Rosy Bent the Festival’s Co-Directors along with GIY Founder Michael Kelly said, “All of our goals for the 2023 Harvest Festival were met, smashed even! All of the hard working team behind the festival are equally elated and exhausted today, knowing what a fantastic event was delivered for all of our visitors and that all of our goals for the festival this year have been met.
We have had the largest crowds to date for the festival, we gave away over 4,000 herbs to eager and enthusiastic people who were all keen to learn how to get started growing their own food, the Junior GIY zone was a big hit, all of our workshops were full with children everyday and Monty and his wormery was a special hit. Thousands of seeds were sown by the next generation of GIYers and Waterford, its food producers and Chefs shone brightly from the Taste Waterford Kitchen stage.
The Food Matters stage welcomed engaged audiences who were keen to learn and eager to ask questions and share in the conversations. Crowds tasted, voted and enjoyed the wonderful Waterford Honey Show. There was dancing in the streets as crowds loved the live music stage and taking the festival into the Cultural Quarter this year was a first and certainly to be repeated.
The festival team are thrilled to have delivered this festival through the power of HVO (Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil) plus had a bio-digester on-site to address any food waste. This was a first for a Waterford Festival and it really paves the way in terms of delivering a sustainable festival future for the City.
We would like to thank everyone took part and who helped us to create this festival, Waterford City & County Council in trusting us and supporting us to deliver this festival along with our sponsors and supporters LEO and Waterford Chamber Skillnet plus our most important festival supporters, our visitors, those that came out in their droves to enjoy the festival programme – thank you. We cannot wait to get stuck into planning 2024, the 15th year of Waterford’s wonderful Harvest Festival.”
Huge Harvest Success for Waterford City
The 2023 Waterford Harvest Festival attracted record crowds to the City over the weekend
The Waterford Harvest Festival offered a full programme of entirely free events for everyone to enjoy. From a live music stage and a vast array of entertainment and things to see, do and eat throughout the festival weekend. Highlights included ‘Food Matters’ food sustainability talks with some of the country’s most esteemed food writers, chefs, activists, journalists and business people offering engaging and entertaining debate each day.
Waterford’s rich food heritage was celebrated across the restaurants, eateries and producers with Waterford’s finest chefs delivering free cookery demos on the Taste Waterford Kitchen Stage. In the Junior GIYer’s zone on O’Connell Street families loved the Wooly Farm with little piglets, lamas, sheep, rabbits, and who were more than delighted to be lavished with attention. Artist Aga Krym created a new living art installation with Slí Waterford based on the UN sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger and the Cool Food School and GIY hosted workshops on seed sowing, growing and cooking food with Monty Potts. There was storytelling and seed sowing at Waterford City Library and more.
At the Waterford Honey Show visitors voted on the best tasting honey and the winners were presented with their prizes by Darina Allen.
The Waterford Harvest Festival is funded by Waterford City & County Council and is a weekend-long celebration. For further details and to enjoy a gallery of images from the 2023 festival see https://harvest.giy.ie/ or follow the Waterford Harvest Festival on social media.
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