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This blog post is a guest post by VegFest
VegFEST Bristol 2014 - Free Tickets To Giveaway
Preparations for one of Europe’s biggest and most unique vegan lifestyle and music festival VegfestUK Bristol 23-25th May, are gathering pace, with headliners announced and tickets now on sale.
This festival traditionally features a vegan food fayre during the day and lets it’s hair down with headline music in the evenings. 25,000 visited past 2 years.
This year’s headliners are:
- Boney M ft. Maizie Williams, Gwen Dickey’s Rose Royce, Abba Gold on Friday May 23rd
- Peter Hook and the Light, Ruts D.C., Goldblade on Saturday May 24th
- Zion Train, Black Roots on Sunday May 25th
Full admission info and advance tickets for the evening part of the show are at www.bristol.vegfest.co.uk/
Of course you want to be there! We have 2 pairs of tickets to giveaway. 1 pair for Friday and 1 pair for Saturday. Each pair is worth £25!
Enter below for your chance to win. Winners to be announced 1st week in May.
Meanwhile, the daytime events feature 140 stalls & caterers, dozens of talks and cookery demos, clay modelling workshops, hoola-hoops, kids cookery classes, art and craft tent, comedy hours, short films, 5 all-day bars and more!
Admission for daytime events is £3 (pay on gate) and free for kids under 16, with no advance tickets available.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
5000 People Descend On VegFest Brighton 2014
VegFest 2014 announced that over 5,000 visitors attended the Brighton annual veggie festival. One of Europe’s biggest veggie lifestyle shows. I was astounded to see the people continually (and eagerly) pouring in through the doors. The warmest day of the year so far and the festival was no match for Brighton’s pebble beach.
125 stalls and caterers stocked with some great-tasting vegan foods ranging from pad thais, cakes, canapes, mock meats, cheeses, chocolates, and lots more. If fact, it was all a bit over whelming, and indulgent (but that was my own doing!). There were dozens of talks, cookery demos, workshops and short films on the benefits of following a plant-based lifestyle.
John Robb, hosted a fundraising auction hosted by in aid of the Animal Welfare Party‘s bid to win a seat at the May EU Elections. The VeggieVision speed-dating session, hosted by Karin Ridgers, which attracted over 100 people (now being single I really had no excuse for not partaking!). I hear it was quite the success.
It almost brought me to (happy) tears to see how the quality of food, clothes, cosmetics, treats and ‘green’ house hold products improves year upon year. Together with the innovative, kind, friendly and warm atmosphere that always pervades.
Lots of new faces added to the established vegan businesses. I also noticed the rise in gluten free products which is great to see.
A happy day.
I hope you enjoy the images.
A very small sampling of the companies showing their goodies
Higher Living Herbs Tea infusions
All Good Things Supper Club - Sammy Gill 07706 217911
Vegan Hastings
Organic Culture Safe cleaning products for your baby
Freerangers Shoes hand made in the UK
Operation Icing Brighton not for profit bakery
London Vegan School
Did you attend? What was your favourite purchase?
Interview with Tim Barford. Founder of VegFest UK
With our GIVEAWAY currently running (have you entered yet?) for free tickets to VegFest London 2013, I thought it would be interesting to find out just how an idea becomes a festival. Also how one man morphs into an entrepreneur, and head honcho of everything hemp.
Tim Barford kindly found some time out from running Yaoh and managing London Vegfest, to answer a few burning questions I had for him.
Why did you set up VegFestUK? I set up VegfestUK back in 2003, just for the crack really, seemed like a good idea for a party at the time. The vegan thing was obviously a lot smaller then so it seemed a really good idea to get it all in one place and then throw a big party around it and invite everyone to come. It’s worked a treat. Loads of people have taken their first steps towards a veggie, flexi or vegan lifestyle by coming to one of our events.
How and where did it begin?.
The first show was in Bristol at The Watershed on November 1st 2003 – we had 40 stalls, and around 1200 visitors, plus about 300 more in the bar next door! We had a room for live music and some demos, and also a talks room, and it went from there. There was a classic moment when a Pink Panther went round the whole show and gave every stallholder a glass of champagne – that Panther must have known what was around the corner for VegfestUK, its turned out to be an incredible success story on every level.
How it has expanded over the years, as in venues and attendance numbers?
The first few years the show grew but not dramatically – we moved to the L shed in 2004 and the show grew to 80 stalls and around 4,000 visitors which was amazing. 2005 and 2006 continued at The L Shed with similar numbers and then in 2007 the L Shed shut and we moved over the river to our current home, The Amphitheatre. This gave us room to expand as it was all outdoors, and we now have a regular 140 stalls and around 20 – 25 000 visitors over the 3 days. It’s wonderful. Brighton has expanded too, with 135 stalls and 7,000 visitors since its launch 5 years ago. And with London in its first year, we await to see how that will go, as it stands a month ahead it’s looking like a cracker
Have there been any knock on effect achievements because of the Fest? Lots of other shows including the West Midlands and the North East Vegan Festivals have taken inspiration from our shows and gone off and started their own, which is really amazing. And a lot of people have started eating more vegan food after coming to our events – hundreds of thousands of people. And with our media and PR presence growing every year, we are reaching more and more people through a lot of different channels.
What is your vision for future events?
My vision for future events is that every food festival in the world is a vegan festival. Might seem a long way off but that is what I am working towards. Meanwhile we’ll keep what we doing and keep it interesting and going, it’s got its own energy now, the vegan thing, its growing of its own accord cos now so many people are on this tip. It’s for real.
What is your current favourite meal (is this an impossible question? probably, I can never answer it). I love hemp (*I should have guessed he’d say that!), especially dehulled hemp seed in smoothies. hummus and pitta with salad and olives. And noodles with chilli and garlic. Just discovered raw courgette noodles and a raw pesto which is pretty cool.
What a guy!
I can’t wait for VegFest London. Come too! Enter to win free tickets.
I hope to see your there. Please come say hello.
Southbank street food - bringing flavours from Africa to London
The sun is out and I’m in the mood for fun. Fun = food (not exclusively..). I called a friend and arranged to meet up at the foot of the London Eye. I hadn’t seen her for a few weeks. It took me all of three minutes to dispense with the niceties and point her in the direction of the Southbank Centre. Ah yes, the Thames is lovely and oh, look at that jolly band playing….now get me some food! The Real Food Market is a summer market of artisan food. I have to say, 90% of it is NOT vegan but I did manage to scout out a street food vendor with two large pans releasing intoxicating aromas that were vegan. Black eyed beans, tomato and spices and spinach, lentil and melon seed (crushed,I have never seen it used in this way before). Both were absolu…bloody…lutely delicious. The flavours deep, the spice subtle but very present..if that makes sense…a chili blast, no, more a flickering flame of heat. I am going to use a word not often uttered from my lips. Marvelous.
My pics don’t offer even a nano idea of how good it was. The plaintains on the top gave the dish all the flavours my taste buds have to tick off their sensation hit list. It was served with a huge smile too…that always helps, when the chef is loved up with his or her culinary creations.
I know the sun had lots to do with it but the little square had such a nice atmosphere, great for people watching. There are a few tables to eat at, but mostly little plastic yellow cubes to sit on. There are tweets and song of bird call piped from speakers on the Hayward gallery and you can peruse street art portraits across the way. Around the corner you can watch the boarders at the skate park bust a few moves before tugging off your socks and creating a few sandcastle masterpieces at the temporary festival beach.
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