Sheffield and its population are passionate about food. Last year more than 184,000 people visited the city centre during the Sheffield Food Festival weekend and enjoyed this exciting (and free) urban food festival which showcased the very best of the city’s local food producers. We are back again this year and welcome you to visit and enjoy the Festival, 20th – 22nd September

As well as the chance to try something new, the festival offers opportunities to learn about different ways of growing and cooking food, pick up new food ideas and cook with the kind of local food that can transform your meals. We are very proud to introduce a city centre allotment to the heart of the Food Festival this year, showcasing how simple and satisfying it can be to grow your own food.

Here in Sheffield we want to support our food businesses to enable them to keep producing great quality foods and inspire us to think about new ways of cooking, eating and shopping for food. This event is our way of putting our local food economy in the spotlight- as well as encouraging us to think about shopping in a more sustainable way.
Our Festival theme this year focuses on the community and children to promote growing and cooking at home, and to encourage friends and neighbours to get together to share and enjoy food.

Last year’s event was fantastic. We hope you’ll be as inspired by the sights, smells and flavours on offer at this year’s Festival as we have been in previous years.
Do you want to get involved with Sheffield Food Festival?

If you are a local business or community group and would like to participate in the Sheffield Food Festival, there are a range of opportunities for you to get involved. These include sponsorship packages, concessions or opportunities to run activities and sessions. Please contact sheffieldfoodfestival@gmail.com

York Food Festival is a ten day event which celebrates local and regional food and drink. It is a not-for-profit organisation and any money generated from ticket sales goes back in to the festival to improve it year after year!

Our Aims
To promote local food producers, independent restaurants and retailers in York;

To provide educational and fun workshops and cookery demonstrations to encourage people to eat healthy, homemade and locally sourced food;

To recognise York as a culinary hotspot, beginning with York’s Chocolate Story, and to promote the wealth of flavours that can be found in Yorkshire;

To transform Parliament Street throughout the days and in the evenings during the festival with a wealth of activities for all ages to enjoy.

Diggerland is the Ultimate Adventure Park where children and adults can drive real diggers – no driving license required! With over 18 rides & drives there is sure to be something for everyone. Diggerland Yorkshire is located in Castleford, West Yorkshire and is open every weekend, bank holiday and every day during school holidays 10am to 5pm.

On 15th September 2013, Diggerland Yorkshire will be letting dressed-up children under the age of 16 into the park for free! All that children have to do to get free entry is to arrive at the park dressed up as a construction worker accompanied by a full paying adult. It’s as simple as that! However, this doesn’t mean just wearing a pair of boots or holding a toy hammer in your hand, Diggerland want the full works! Preferably all participating children will be wearing clothing such as Hi Vis vests, hard hats, tool belts and overalls, like a real construction worker!

You’ll never be disappointed when you visit Saltaire! We have something for the entire family from the beautiful open gardens of Roberts Park to the imposing Salts Mill there’s plenty to do not matter the weather. Plus, don’t forget the annual Saltaire Festival held in September every year, for which you’ll find everything you need to know on this website. However in the mean time have a look at some of the other things to do in Saltaire throughout the year.

Last year the first Staithes Festival of Arts & Heritage brought some 3,000 visitors to Yorkshire’s historic and beautiful fishing village with a glorious mix of paintings, prints, photography and more as cottages became pop-up galleries for the weekend. We plan to do the same again this year. We will have more galleries, new talks, walks and workshops. There will be pop-up cafés in cottages and a brand new music programme. Brian Butcher our Musical Director, died in January. He made an enormous contribution to the culture of the village and the district for 40 years. We dedicate this, our second festival to Brian.

Harrogate Flower Shows are widely regarded as the UK’s most prestigious independent gardening events.

The Autumn Show offers thousands of gardeners the chance to celebrate the year’s successful harvest, as well as looking forward to the new growing season.

Staged at the Great Yorkshire Showground, the show features the famous battle of the giants as colossal cabbages, magnificent marrows and tremendous tomatoes weigh in for the giant vegetable competition. And the National Onion Championship includes an annual bid to break the world record for the heaviest onion.

Great gardens start in the autumn and the Harrogate Flower Show provides a great opportunity to plan your perfect garden for with all the inspiration, plants and products to suit every space and every pocket.

Beautiful show garden borders bring ideas from the designer to your doorstep, while nearly 100 leading nurseries create wonderful displays of plants, bulbs and seeds.

An absolutely staggering array of over 5,000 fabulous autumn flowers, the largest exhibition of bonsai outside Japan and one of the country’s most valuable honey shows all await visitors to the show.

Expert teams from Kitchen Garden Live, the Dig It Garden Theatre and the Garden Advice Bureau will be on hand to provide advice and entertainment with talks, demonstrations and one-to-one discussions on growing everything from herbs to hostas, as well as answering all those tricky gardening conundrums that crop up.

Top chefs from across the region will be sharing a daily menu of mouth-watering ideas for turning home grown produce into delicious meals with visitors to the Plot to Pot Cookery Theatre.

Thousands of top-quality garden products, more than 70 unique craft and gift stalls, and dozens of specialist food outlets provide unrivalled early Christmas shopping opportunities.

Heart Gallery welcomes you to a world of recycling! Embracing new work by carefully chosen UK designer/makers in different disciplines who work with recycled or sustainable materials and are inspired by reclamation processes. These designer/makers love to create something new from something old and discarded and we hope you love their creations.

Our Picture Gallery will be showcasing new and exciting work from local photographer Ross McGuiness who has been inspired by this exhibition to tour the locality for car restoration shots … I’ve had some sneaky peeks and they are fantastic!

Hopefully a thought provoking exhibition that will make people think about objects that are often discarded and thrown away in a different light and perhaps send them away with inspirational ideas for their own home.

The annula Art in the Gardens event, held in Sheffield Botanical Gardens, is arguably the largest outdoor art exhibition in the north of England with artists, craft makers and visitors coming from throughout the UK. this year’s event will be the 10th Anniversary event, so we are already working hard to make sure this will be the very best show yet.

This event is a truly wonderful opportunity to buy the perfect piece of art or craft direct from the artist, whilst enjoying the perfect surroundings that the gardens have to offer.

Sheffield Botanical Gardens
7th & 8th September 2013
10.30am to 5.30pm

A great day out for all the family

Premier Artists
Open art exhibition
Portrait of Distinction competition
Outdoor sculptures on the lawns
Huge variety of artist and craft exhibitors
Children’s Art Activity Village
Young Painters of the Year exhibits
Live Music and Performance Stage
Original art, prints and craft for sale direct from the artists

Put the dates 7th to the 22nd September 2013 in your diary and count down the days to the next South Pennine Walk and Ride Festival. Visit the Events page for over 160 opportunities this year to explore our stunning landscape in the sunshine – whether on foot, on cycle or on horseback – we’re sure you’ll find something to get you reaching for your boots, your lycra or your stirrups!

It is of course INCREDIBLE news that the Second Stage of the 2014 Grand Depart of the Tour de France will be zig zagging through the South Pennines in July 2014. We have an extravaganza of events to get you in training in 2013′s festival and of course we will be doing a huge amount of celebrating in 2014. We are looking forward to being part of what is sure to be the UKs most successful and exciting cycling event ever.

Whether you want to wander through woodland, clamber over crags, bike to a brewery or trot to a tearoom, all this and more is on offer at Walk and Ride Festival 2013.

Leeds Inter-national Beer Festival 2013

The Leeds International Beer Festival returns for its 2nd year from 5 – 8 September.

An annual 4 day Festival in the heart of Leeds, celebrating and promoting craft beer brewed in the UK and overseas.

Along with 100s of beers and ciders the festival also includes a street food market, live music across two stages and all sorts of lovely beer related things.

Vintage & Antiques Market with 30+ Great Traders selling Vintage, antiques, retro and pre-loved treasures and collectables.

The Bury Transport Museum hosts regular craft workshops and events to keep your little ones minds busy over the school holidays. The workshops are open from 11 am to 3pm and admission is standard museum prices plus £1.00 per child. For more information on Craft workshops telephone: 0161 763 7949 or email: transport.museum@east-lancs-rly.co.uk

Let your imagination run wild and build whatever you want in the final craft activity of the summer.

Wensleydale Agricultural Show is a traditional dales show, located close to Leyburn, North Yorkshire in the heart of Wensleydale.

Wensleydale Show features an extensive range of competitive events for livestock such as sheep, cattle, horses and poultry. There will be over 60 classes in poultry alone, ranging from large fowls to true bantams and an egg section.

There are also horticultural and handicraft classes.

Ring displays continue throughout the day, many trade stands offer a wide range of products & produce, Leyburn band plays, and quoits competitions can be entered on the day.

The Great British Food Festival was formulated in June 2012 by two brothers who had a great love for food.

The team, now, are also foody people who love local produce and strive to gain awareness to the fantastic foods we have on offer in the North West, many you wouldn’t even know about!

Our first Festival was hosted on the Jubilee weekend where we saw a turnout of 10,000 people and brought us on the map. We work closely with our sister company, The Cheshire Food Festival, which has been in operation since 2011 and has seen similar turnouts at their events throughout historic landmarks in Cheshire.

We provide a fantastic, light-hearted atmosphere where you can find some hidden gems. With live music, chef demos, cake-offs and our producers, we are sure you foody types out there will have a fantastic time.

We are child friendly and provide an array of activities for them during Festival times. Dogs are also welcome at all venues, unless otherwise stated in our newsletter or news page.

We hope you jump on the Great British Food Festival bandwagon and come experience a true taste of Britain with us.

If you are looking for excitement and fun, if you want to learn something new and if you love being outside then the activity sessions at Outdoor Elements will suit you down to the ground.

Why not sign up and have a go?

Friday 23rd August 9.30am – 12.30pm

Bushcraft – £21 per person (book the whole day for £30 including lunch)

Friday 23rd August 1pm – 4pm

Jacob’s Ladder & Leap of Faith – £21 per person (book the whole day for £30 including lunch)

For full days you may bring a packed lunch or these can be ordered in advance at £4.80 each

The courses are suitable for both adults and children (aged 8+).

The bushcraft session is OK for Children aged 4-7 when accompanied by a paying adult. Adults are welcome to participate or spectate.

Do the quiz and find the treasure

The idea of Tribfest is to enable families to enjoy an affordable, fantastic, fun weekend away, meeting fellow festival friends old and new, whilst listening to some great live music performed on a stage of high quality with big screens and top sound and lighting to accompany this.

On the weekend of the 17 and 18 August we will be bringing all the fun of the seaside back to the City Centre with free activities for the whole family to enjoy in the Cathedral Precinct. Also look out for more seaside themed fun taking place at the Ridings and Trinity Walk shopping centres over the weekend.

Seaside fun will include:

the big beach
pedalo boating lake
Helter Skelter
Punch and Judy
live music
donkey rides
crazy golf
seaside street food & market
giant seagulls
street entertainment
and much more!
Pirate Pandemonium at The Ridings

The Ridings are also take part in Seaside in the City – playing host to Pirate Pandemonium, an 18 foot pirate ship, docking on the upper mall on Saturday 17 August.

The Captain and his crew will be performing two interactive shows at 11.30am and 2pm and instead of walking the plank the pirates will walk the malls between 12.30pm and 1.15pm. Plus there’ll be a limited amount of free pirate kits up for grabs.

The pirate themed fun is set to continue on Sunday 18 August when there’ll be a free workshop at The Ridings from 11am to 3pm for children to make their very own pirate masks and parrots.

Beacons festival is a fresh art & music boutique festival for the north. Set upon the stunning Yorkshire Dales. Takes place 16-18th August 2013

Check out the Line up at: http://www.greetingsfrombeacons.com/line-up/

Launch new range at 1875 Restaurant Indian Food the1875.com, as they introduce a world first – ‘Traditional Sunday Roast with hints of Indian Flavours’