The first Folkestone Fish Fest was scheduled for last weekend, and I had been looking forward to opening it on the Saturday morning. Sadly the wind and rain intervened, and what may have been good weather for fish, was a disaster for the stall holders and musicians who were booked to perform, which led to much of the festival programme having to be cancelled for safety reasons.
I would like to thank everyone involved with the Folkestone Fish Fest for the huge amount of hard work they put in, to plan and deliver the event; and in particular to Andy Shorten, Johnny Cotter, Cath Mison, and Chris Raines. We have a fantastic local food offering, and to have a sea food festival in the atmospheric fish market in Folkestone is an excellent idea. I hope that the organisers will look to hold the event next year, once they have recovered from all the hard work they put in to Fish Fest 2013. Festivals like these are not only very popular locally, but help attract more visitors into the area.
There were a number of indoor events associated with the Fish Fest which carried on as planned, including an excellent display of the history and heritage of the local fishing industry which was hosted in the Triennial Visitors Centre building on Tontine Street. The was part of a larger ‘open quarter’ weekend organised by the Creative Foundation where many of the businesses that form the creative quarter opened later into the evening and offered extra discounts for customers. In addition to this other local artists had set up open studios in the creative quarter for the weekend. It was great to see the creative quarter busy with visitors and businesses, despite the poor weather.