Bridlington Old Town welcomes new winter festival

It'll be a big street event marking the first Sunday of advent

Author: Karen LiuPublished 28th Nov 2021

Bridlington Old Town is welcoming its new winter festival today.

The big street event will mark the first Sunday of advent and runs over the next month.

There will be a countdown and lights switch-on at the Christmas Tree at 4pm with the Mayor.

It has been organised by ROBOT, which stands for Regeneration of Bridlington Old Town, an association created back in August this year.

Martyn Coltman is from there and said:

"From around 10.30am the public will start to arrive and we have street entertainment all day, we've got brass bands, marching jazz bands, pipe bands, dancers, we have coastal voices choir and we also have a street merchant market.

"We wanted to bring it back and we think people are kind of ready for that now and the best way to do that is to spread it over a period of time, so that people don't feel compelled to all turn up on the same day because obviously there's only been one Christmas festival day in the past, hence why we've added a second one to try and space things out so we can try and cater for crowds.

"The idea is to try and give people a lot more space to enjoy the festivities. We've got performance areas which are completely clear so we can have people safely gathered there. We've got three areas of stalls and inbetween those areas, we have the Christmas tree with lights switch on at 4pm, so we have entertainment running all day.

"We want to bring more regularly footfall to the Old Town because it's a thriving business area, it's also a residential space, but the high street is really a commercial area full of all sorts of independent stalls and shops, but the plans are that we'll bring festivals on a regular basis from 2022 onwards."

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