THIS year's Bolton Food and Drink Festival was the biggest and best ever — and here are the pictures to prove it.
We have put together an eight-page supplement on the festival featuring your pictures and some we took ourselves.
More than 200,000 people visited the festival last weekend which celebrated its 10th anniversary this year.
And visitors came from a far afield as Australia, Cyprus and France as well as from all corners of the UK.
Festival-goers sampled culinary delights from a record 180 stalls; watched celebrities including Lisa Faulkner, John Torode and James Martin in a series of cookery demonstrations in Victoria Square; enjoyed live shows from CBeebies star Katy Ashworth and pop-up theatre from the Octagon; listened to free live music, and were entertained by various street artists.
One of the star attractions was Kimmy - a 5ft 7in, 250kg elephant cake - made especially for the festival’s 10th birthday by expert baker Rose Dummer. The cake was distributed to festival goers with a section going to Urban Outreach.
Leader of Bolton Council, Cllr Cliff Morris, said: “It’s been another fantastic weekend and from such small beginnings the event has grown massively to become the premier food festival in the north.
“The weather held out which does help with visitors but even yesterday with the rain in the morning the crowds were still out. To hear that people living abroad are timing their holiday to come to the festival just shows what a fabulous event it is.
“We’ve had fantastic feedback from festival visitors, traders, chefs and our sponsors and partners. The support of a sponsor like Aldi has definitely contributed to increased visitors. I’d like to thank everyone for making this the biggest and best festival yet.”
Bolton Food and Drink Festival is organised by the council in association with Aldi, which is opening a state of the art distribution centre in the town later this year.
Aldi were recruiting for their regional head office and distribution centre at the event.
Virgil Simpson, Aldi Logistics Director added: “We were all amazed by the turnout at the festival throughout the Bank Holiday, and the traders we spoke to had a very successful weekend.
“Aldi has been recruiting for its new distribution centre during the event, and we received a huge amount of interest from job seekers so we’re confident that we’re going be able to fill in excess of 150 positions with people from in and around Bolton.”
Afternoon tea at Bolton Food and Drink Festival with Lisa Faulkner, Great British Bake Off's Luis Troyano, and Phil Perera and Omar Farag, who appeared on Dragons' Den
Lucy Williams, aged two
Mini chef Mia Wilson
Isabella Myers had fun on the Sunday
UKpowerhour members, Holiday Inn and Spice Valley staff, with, chef Andrew Nutter (centre)
See today's Bolton News for more fantastic photographs in our 8-page special
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