The Highs and Lows of saving a Food & Drink Festival from being Lost Forever!

There is something slightly unhinged about taking on a festival that has been happening for 25 years (which wasn’t renewing for year 26 due to the current climate)  - and then pulling it all together in 10 weeks!

That was basically my life for the last few weeks.

Last weekend, we organised our first Food and Drink Festival: the Cheshire and North Wales Food and Drink Festival. And not just any event, but one with history behind it, a loyal audience, traders depending on it, and all the pressure that comes with bringing something back that people already care about.

That is the thing with festivals. People see the nice bits. The chef demos, the live music, the kids’ entertainment, the drinks, the street food, the happy families, the photos. What they do not see is the panic over signage, the endless site plans, the late-night messages, the “can we fit more in?”, the weather checks every five minutes, the gazebos being dragged around, and the constant feeling that you are one forgotten detail away from disaster. Thank god for Chester Printworks! they sorted us right out, as I almost sent our brochure (thousands of them) to print with the wrong spelling of a celebrity chef. Just in time we got to change it before it went to print, and I mean seconds from print. Part of the fun I suppose.

Some parts we felt alright about, the Camping, for example, was being handled by LFX Events, and because they also look after Deva Fest (www.devafest.co.uk) camping, we knew that side was in safe hands. They know exactly what they are doing, so no worries there.

Everything else, though, was very much all hands-on deck.

Set-up ended up being a proper team and family effort. I got the office involved; I got the wider family involved - my cousins came down to help put up what felt like hundreds of gazebos, move tables and get the place looking like an actual event rather than a very stressed to-do list.

Katie Isaacson, my partner throughout this, was beyond amazing, especially with traders and finalising all those finer details, and I genuinely could not have done it without her and the wider Cool Breeze Events team. It really was one of those moments where everyone mucked in because that was the only way it was going to happen. The office staff were putting signs up, head chef came and jumped on breakfast for the campers each morning, we all got stuck in, because we knew what this was and we believed it was something special.

For a while, it felt like the weather was going to behave itself. All week on the racecourse, the sun had been out. It was gorgeous. By Thursday, traders and campers were arriving, gazebos were being shifted around, people were finding their places, and although it was chaotic, it was the kind of chaos that still feels exciting. Everyone was buzzing for the weekend ahead.

Then Friday came.

We were all on site for 7am, getting the final entrance signs up and making sure everything was ready. By 10am, we were open.

The sun was not exactly showing off. It was grey and a bit miserable looking, but the vibe was still good. Friday was always expected to be our quietest day, given it was Good Friday, and historically the festival was never open on a Friday. Either way, I was prepared for it to be slower than the rest of the weekend, but actually, Friday went well – many of previous festival traders said 100% the right decision, the Mondays never went well for them!

We had around 1,500 people on site, which felt like a solid start, albeit below our desired numbers. The chef demo stage did really well. Brian Mellor and Paul Askew brought in a great crowd, and MasterChef winner Brin Pirathapan cooked a stunning lamb dish that went down brilliantly. We also had the lovely Leanne Campbell hosting the stage, and she did an excellent job. She even saw the potential with the festival stating that “if it was sunny, all the scousers would be here” and to be fair, she was probably right!

The cooking classes also went exceptionally well, which was lovely to see and the learning and education is a close to my heart area that is just brilliant to see kids being taught to cook. There were some real moments on Friday - you could feel people getting into it, settling in and enjoying themselves.

We ended Friday in decent spirits, but I knew the traders had not had the full financial day they were hoping for all round, and that is one of the hardest bits as an organiser. You do feel that responsibility and you do genuinely want them to do well. You want the crowds to come. You want them to leave saying it was worth it. We had put so much into advertising, from paid socials, to influencers, to radio, to local magazines, to banners around the region – but hand on heart, I don’t think we could have done much more to get people there with our finances and timelines, but that does not stop you feeling the pressure when traders are counting on footfall.

Still, everyone left hopeful for Saturday, because it was always going to be the big one!

And then Friday night happened.

We had several discussions around Health and Safety, and also engaged with the Racecourse team, and agreed, in line with our pre-agreed risk assessments that if the winds exceeded our threshold as forecasted, the site would have to close, and decisions were all based on the visual, at the time, MET Weather Forecast and timelines.

My natural entrepreneurial brain wanted to say everyone was overreacting. I wanted to believe the forecast would be wrong, that the weather would be fine, that we could push through it. I was thinking about the money, the pressure, the disappointment, the impact of closing a whole day. Basically, every unhelpful/ but honest, thought was flying around my head.

But Katie really grounded me in that moment. She said what needed to be said: if a gazebo went in those winds and someone got hurt, the aftermath would be far worse than the financial hit of shutting for the day.

And she was right.

It was probably the hardest decision I have made in my hospitality career.

We also knew we had to make the call quickly, because if we were closing, we needed to tell people in time. I am not going to go too deep into all of that here because I think the cancellation deserves its own blog, and trust me, there is a lot to say. But what I will say is this: it was devastating. Absolutely devastating. It was not the outcome we wanted, and there was no part of that decision that felt easy or at that time of night easy to ensure everyone got the message via social, email or text – and it wasn’t – so messaging was an issue and again lessons learnt around checking and triple checking.

Then came Sunday. And thank goodness for Sunday, because Sunday was fantastic!

Going into it, we were all nervous. Really nervous. We knew some customers would be frustrated, and rightly so. We knew some traders would still be disappointed, and again, rightly so. All we could do was tackle it properly, apologise where needed, and try to put on the best possible day, by being present, helpful and visually seen and communicating with everyone, and thankfully, the atmosphere on Sunday was brilliant.

The kids’ zone was packed all day. The food trader zone was a massive hit too and felt busy all day. The chef demo rooms filled, with names like Aiden Byrne and Cherish Finden pulling in a great crowd. We had line dancing, which got people up on their feet, and mascots walking round the site all day, which also turned out to be a huge hit.

That was one of my favourite things about Sunday actually. After such a horrible, stressful turn on the Saturday, the site suddenly felt full of life again. Families were out enjoying themselves, people were eating, drinking, watching demos, the kids were loving it, and the whole place just had a positive energy to it. It felt like the festival we had wanted people to experience all along.

And then by 5pm, it was done.

The site began to clear. Traders started packing up. Things started coming down. And just like that, the most intense, stressful, exhausting week had flown by in a blur.

That is the weird thing with events. You build and build and build towards them, they take over your life, every second feels important, and then suddenly it is over and you are stood there thinking… did that actually just happen?

Looking back now, I know I could not have done it without Katie Isaacson and the wider team around me. Not a chance. Bringing back a festival is exciting, but it is also emotional, relentless and full of pressure. There are so many moving parts, and so much of it is invisible to the people walking through the gates. Which is probably how it should be. Guests should see the fun. They should not see the panic behind it.

And of course, I have learnt a lot.

I have learnt just how much responsibility comes with running an outdoor event.  

How quickly things can change. How much you carry as the organiser.  

And how even when you do your best, there are still things completely out of your hands.

The truth is, I have made a loss. A big one. But that is the risk with outdoor events, and with business generally - you can work flat out, do everything you can, pour everything into it, and still end up at the mercy of the weather and heavily out of pocket.

So, would I do it again?

Honestly, right now, I am not sure.

Ask me on a better day and I might say absolutely. Ask me when I am looking at the numbers and I say absolutely not.

But if there is one thing about me, it is this: never say never.