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ocToBer
FeasT
10 days of foodie heaven
It started, for me, with a phone call, back in March.
It was Tony, from the S<strong>now</strong>drop Inn. “A few of <strong>us</strong>
are thinking of starting up a food and drink festival
in Lewes,” he said. “Do Viva want to get involved?”
“You bet,” was the answer, or words to that effect,
and pretty soon I was at the first meeting to disc<strong>us</strong>s
matters. There were about ten of <strong>us</strong> there, mostly
involved in some way in the food ind<strong>us</strong>try in town.
Everybody there, importantly, adhered to the same
food philosophy. If people buy locally produced
wares from local shops, rather than flown-in stuff
from the supermarkets, it’s better for the local
economy, better for the environment at large, and,
in the long run, better for the consumer too. So the
festival should be <strong>us</strong>ed as a showcase for the rich
variety of stuff produced and sold, raw and cooked,
around Lewes. Pl<strong>us</strong> we could bring a number of
visitors to Lewes, who would spend money here,
and might decide to come again. And, of course,
everyone loves a party. We decided, at that very
meeting, to call the festival the ‘Octoberfeast’.
That was <strong>now</strong> many meetings ago and since then,
though sometimes things seem to have moved
incrementally slowly, a fantastic schedule has
taken shape, and is still taking shape. Paddock
Productions are putting on two different foodrelated
plays (including the Brighton-Festival hit
Shakespeare à la Carte); the Film Club are putting
on a couple of fine films; there are speakers and
demonstrations galore; there’s stuff on in Harvey’s,
including tours of the brewery and a ‘dancing in
the Old’ afternoon; there are Norman and Tudor
banquets in Lewes’ historic buildings; there’s a
‘food crawl’ round some of Lewes’ best pubs;
w w w. V I VA l E w E s . C o M
F o o D
there’s an apple press to turn your windfalls to
juice; there’s a day-long pickling event, called
‘Pickled’; there’s a kids’ art competition, to be
exhibited in shop fronts around town. There’s even
a tea dance, in the Town Hall, to raise money for
the Mayor’s charities.
Apart from a genero<strong>us</strong> grant of £1,000 from the
Town Council, and another for the apple press,
the festival organisers have had no money to put
into the event (it’s equally important to say that
the organisation is a not-for-profit affair) so we’ve
pulled in a number of groups to organise their
own events under the umbrella of the Octoberfeast
Festival. There’s a website up (lewesoctoberfeast.
com) to let you k<strong>now</strong> what’s scheduled, with blogs
and other information, too.
We’re <strong>us</strong>ing the Market Tower as our HQ, and
there will be a succession of events on there,
courtesy of the Lewes Food Group, which
organises a market there every Friday morning.
Rocket FM have got involved, too, and are starting
up their popular annual broadcast a week early (for
internet access only) to cover the festival events.
Inaugural events are always worrying things,
when you’re an event organiser, when you don’t
realise whether all the hours and days and weeks
and months of preparation is going to be worth it.
The biggest figure in the equation is the public,
which, by and large, means you. We urge you to
get involved in the party, in one way or another, to
ensure that it’s a success, and to ensure in turn that
it becomes an annual event. As it says in the blurb,
it’s all in the best possible taste. Alex Leith
www.lewesoctoberfeast.com
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