A popular festival which celebrates local produce has been named a finalist in the Tourism Event/Festival Of The Year category at the Bristol, Bath and Somerset Tourism Awards 2020/21.
The festival finalist, eat:Portishead, was one of the few live events to run in the region last summer, which saw a food and drink market set up around Portishead Marina with Covid-19 transmission mitigation measures in place.
This is the third time the event has been held in Portishead and the team now looks forward to its return to the town on August 14.
Head of spreadsheets at eat:Festivals, Bev Milner Simonds, said: "2020 was a challenging time for everyone in the events industry and we are proud of the adaptations our producers and production partners made at short notice.
“We send our thanks to the officers and council members at North Somerset Council who worked alongside us to make the event happen, our production partners and sponsors whose support enables our work and the visitors who came along, followed the guidance and had a safe, happy visit.
“Good luck to the other two finalists in our category and good luck to anyone planning an event in 2021."
The multi-award-winning eat:Festivals focus on hosting traders selling locally-sourced food and drink and the events will return to North Somerset, starting in Weston, in April.
Clevedon is a new host to the event in 2021, which will visit the town on May 15, trading from 10am-4pm.
Executive for Tourism and Leisure at North Somerset Council, Mike Solomon, said: “I very much look forward to all future eat:Festivals events and want to warmly congratulate them on being nominated for an award.
“It is well deserved and I wish them good luck for the announcement next month.”
The eat:Portishead team will find out if they have won gold, silver, bronze or a special accolade at the online Bristol, Bath and Somerset Tourism Awards ceremony on March 18.
Clare Bushby of Clockwork Marketing, headline sponsors of the tourism awards, said the awards are especially important this year and ‘provide normality during a surreal time, where everything seems weighted against hospitality’.
She said: “Entrants into this year’s awards have been remarkably inventive when faced with the impact of coronavirus.
“They have shown, against all the odds, that a pandemic needn’t stand in the way of excellent hospitality."
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