Visitors including gardeners, smallholders, and farmers from across Wales and further afield are expected to flock to this year’s Royal Welsh Spring Festival over the weekend of May 19-20.

The Festival, now one of the most popular events in Wales, draws around 25,000 people of all ages to the Royal Welsh showground at Llanelwedd, Builth Wells, for what is described by the organisers as ‘the number one event for smallholding, gardening and sustainable living’.

“Although all aspects of the Festival may not yet be finalised it is clear that there will be something new and exciting around almost every corner of every section – just like the real countryside,” said Dr Fred Slater, the Festival Chairman.

“I hope the weekend will inspire some to become more involved in countryside skills whether bees, poultry, sheep, goats or gardening, to mention just a few, and to help them along we are providing a ‘getting started trail’ with an information desk to guide interested visitors to the demonstrations, advice and talks they might need,” he added.

A number of new classes are being introduced in several of the livestock sections at this year’s Festival including those for sheep, angora goats, pigs and cattle and there will again be an exciting main ring programme.

One of the major attractions at the Festival is the Green Horizons Sustainable Living Exhibition, a highlight at the event since it was introduced in 2006 and now a heady 2 mix of trade stands, demonstrations, family workshops and green-themed entertainment which together provide a variety of ideas to make lifestyles more sustainable.

One of the innovations being developed for the 2012 exhibition is titled ‘Fashioning the Future’ which will include a fashion show and several related trade stands featuring, among other interests, felt-making and clothes recycling.

The Festival is an important platform to help people conserve energy and protect the environment while at the same time providing two days of enjoyable entertainment. There will be over 300 agricultural and craft trade stands demonstrating and selling just about everything the smallholder and gardener might need and many workshops, talks and question and answer sessions on smallholding, horticultural, environmental and countryside matters.

New this year will be five cookery, bakery and butchery demonstrations a day while the Floral Hall, a popular venue for visitors, is being expanded to create a Gardener’s Corner for plots and allotments.

Among other attractions will be woodlands and crafts, beekeeping displays, a farriery and blacksmiths competition, a vintage machinery section which will also feature exhibits from the National Cycle Museum, a folk dance festival, property road show, a pets exhibition, a poultry show and a premier open dog show with over 1000 entries.

The main ring attraction will include scurry driving, Ye Old Redtail Falconry and Meirion Owen and his Quack Pack. There will also be auctions of poultry, farm equipment and vintage memorabilia.

livestock schedules for the Festival – the twelfth to be run by the RWAS – will be available shortly. Entries close 2 April - watch out for more news in Smallholder magazine (March issue out now) and on the website.

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