Ramsbottom Chocolate Festival organisers have taken the initiative to postpone the Chocolate Festival for Ramsbottom 2020.
The event, which was due to take place on the 4th and 5th of April would have been the 11th annual chocolate festival, which is one of the biggest events that take place in Ramsbottom.
A full statement has been posted to the Ramsbottom Chocolate Festival Facebook Page:
Hi Everyone
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 monetry losses should an event be cancelled last minute. We know that some people may be disappointed but really hope that they will understand that this decision has been made to protect many businesses and visitors.
It is felt it will be a better decision to hold the event at a later date when the current situation has passed.
Any trader who has applied will have their application held on file for when the new date is arranged. They will then be contacted with an invitation to trade.
Ramsbottom Chocolate and Food Festival
Some people commenting on the post on Facebook have made comments such as Gillian:
Remember guys these traders are a small business … if you wanted to grab your favourite treat on that weekend.. they will have online shops & will appreciate your custom as it’s a hard hit for the traders who rely on these events as there income … so support these guys so you can see them in the future ? lots will not have been trading since December…so come on show your support x
Gillian
That’s a great idea, and well suggested Gillian. I’ve asked on that post if it’s possible for a list of those businesses who would have been affected in the interests of sharing their trading info. Some might have websites, some might be local shops. There’s no dought that when the weather is good, people rely on the trade from the chocolate festival.
How do you feel about this? Is it a sensible answer to a potential problem down the line (if events were to be forceably cancelled) or is this going too far? Would love to hear your views in the comments below.
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