Monday 13 September 2010

Mayor's Thames Festival 2010

Last weekend saw our second appearance at the Mayor's Thames Festival. This annual event is held all along the South bank of the river Thames from Tower Bridge right up to the London Eye. Last year we opened our stall near the London Eye, but this year we had a chance to see the happenings at the other end as were were much further down the river situated right by HMS Belfast and with an impressive view of Tower Bridge.

We had a great response from the public and as always, customer feedback is important to us. We enjoy meeting the customers and having the chance to explain our production methods in detail and also hearing about customers' experiences with natural fibres or natural dyes. We would like to thank Brenda & Bobby for making the trip down from Lode to see us and also our family members who came to show support and have a day in London.

It would be nice to be able to list all the people who helped make this festival a great weekend for us, but I feel the list would take up too many pages. We were kept fairly busy and didn't have as much time to check out the other stalls and attractions along the Thames as we'd have liked, but there were a few things that caught our eye.

The London Guild of Weavers, Spinners & Dyers were there showing members of the public aspects of these important traditional skills. Their website can be found here! We also had the chance to catch up with a few traders from Greenwich Market and an amazing busker.

This festival takes place each September and is the largest free outdoor arts festival. It transforms unusual spaces on and around the River Thames with a mixture of street arts, performance, carnival, pyrotechnics, illuminations, art installations, exhibitions, river events, massed choirs, circus, music and dance, food and feasting. All this is finished off with an incredible fireworks display fired from the centre of the river itself. This is one of the few festivals from last year that we returned to this year and we will be looking to return in September 2011.