We wanted to update you regarding the Chocolate Festival. As you know we have been considering the viability of the festival due to the current situation with Coronavirus.

 After careful consideration and contacting Bury Council who in turn contacted Public Health and Health Safety for guidance we, the organisers, have decided that at this time it is sensible to postpone the Chocolate Festival to a later date to be confirmed for business and welfare reasons.

At present there is not advice from Public Health to cancel or postpone events which are due to take place but the feedback that we have received is that this situation may change in the intervening weeks and that the decision could be made close to when the event was due to take place. Cancelling the event at short notice has a huge financial impact for ourselves as organisers with costs exceeding £15,000 which if the event was to not go ahead is obviously a huge loss, with most traders making fresh food again they could also potentially face massive losses. We feel that this is too high a business risk for everyone involved in this current climate and particularly given the information that we are reading daily in the press potentially discouraging visitors to the event. 

 We have seen that other events have started to be cancelled. The businesses that we have spoken to are reporting that it has had substantial impact already on customer/visitor numbers. How this matter will play out over the next four weeks is too much of an unknown.

The festival is a busy and well attended event which has been supported for many years by loyal visitors, we hope that they understand that the decision to postpone has been made to safeguard the wellbeing of visitors, traders and staff and also to alleviate any potential monetary losses should an event be cancelled last minute. It is felt it will be a better decision to hold the event at a later date when the current situation has passed or is under control.

Traders who have already applied their Applications will be held on file until a date is rescheduled, they will then be sent Invitations to Trade.

Applications are now being accepted for the Ramsbottom Chocolate Festival, download the application from our Chocolate festival page.

Our next Farmers Market is outside at Market Place and inside the Civic Hall on the 8th March 2020.  There is a wide range of fresh food and handmade crafts.  To book a space complete the application form on our apply to trade page.