This year the Ivybridge Christmas Festival was located in Fore Street, Glanvilles Mill and Glanvilles Mill car park, running from 4pm until 8pm.
Miss Ivy Events, a local leading organiser of street food and artisan events with connections to many exhibitors, was invited to manage the Christmas Festival again following the successful event she delivered the previous year. This year she brought in over forty quality craft gift stalls plus hot food spread throughout the town. Priority for pitches was given to local people before opening the market up to all traders.
Ivybridge Town Council was successful in securing three main sponsors, namely London and Cambridge Properties who are the owners of Glanvilles Mill, Palladium Building Supplies, and Manning and Company. Ivybridge Dental Centre, Ivor Jones Financial Planning, Richard Peachey and Christopher’s South Hams also supported the event. Lawsons donated their electricity supply free of charge, and Manning and Company did a collection and donated funds to the Mayor’s charity for Ivybridge Young Carers. The Town Council is very grateful to all the above businesses for their generous support.
Miss Ivy Events helped to coordinate the event in an extremely friendly and professional manner. She brought in more than the expected revenue and secured some excellent entertainment, including the extremely popular Paw Patrol and festive Punch and Judy, plus stilt walkers and live music artists.
A new Christmas lighting scheme was introduced into the main street, using LED festoon lighting dressed with falling tubes and glittering ball displays. In January the decorative lights will be removed leaving the festoon lighting in place but switched off. This allows flexibility for them to be turned on for other events in the town throughout the year.
The running of the event was successful, not only due to the assistance of a professional events coordinator, but also to the management on the day by the dedicated Town Hall team with the help of their families and Rotary Club members plus councillors. The staff are grateful to all those volunteers as without their help in safely managing the road closures and the car park, plus helping to set up and take down the marquees and staging, the event would not have been possible. We were also grateful to have a strong presence from the police and fire services.
The weather was calm and dry and the town was incredibly busy. Feedback from residents and businesses has been extremely positive and social media comments were excellent, indicating that the community had found the event very enjoyable.
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