Countdown begins to North Devon's Sea Ilfracombe Maritime Festival

Now in its 16th year, the festival will see Ilfracombe taken over by a celebration of family entertainment, a local food show and live music on Saturday  and Sunday, August 30 and 31.

This year’s festival features 17 bands and entertainers across three venues, offering everything from sea shanty singers to ska, rock, rhythm and blues and pop.  

Meanwhile the food offering will include a hog roast, barbecue, Mexican street food, woodfired pizza, jacket spuds, ice cream and doughnuts for the sweet of tooth, with more to come.

Plus, the organisers have linked up with the Ship & Pilot and Hele Bay pub teams who, along with 11 The Quay, and will be serving lagers, ales, ciders, rums, cocktails, wines and much, much more at the Pirates Arm and The Makai Bar.

Making all of this happen is a small group of volunteers lead by a committee – or ‘crew’ of six people. Chairman John Irwin and treasurer Julie Irwin have been involved for the past four years, and explained that the festival was originally conceived as a way of marking the end of the tourist season. 

Julie said: “It's a way of Ilfracombe celebrating all that's good about Ilfracombe in the maritime history, although it's moved on a bit from maritime history.

“So the initial reason was to say ‘thank you’ to the people of Ilfracombe. It's now changed completely. We have holidaymakers now who change their holiday dates to make sure they're down here for the festival, which is absolutely awesome, absolutely lovely.”

Last year’s event brought huge footfall into Ilfracombe, with the added benefit for B&Bs and local businesses. Although it is hard to put a figure on exact numbers, as the event is free, the organisers estimate that around 5,000 or 6,000 people attend over the weekend.

Sea Ilfracombe Maritime Festival is run on a not-for-profit basis, with any proceeds ploughed back into the running the following year’s event. Last year the festival cost £21,000 to put on and produced a surplus of around £5,000, so fundraising is vitally important, especially as costs have risen by about 20% this year. Sponsors play a key role, although attracting business sponsorship has become more difficult as firms have had to reduce their outgoings. 

Despite this, the festival organisers are determined to keep the event as accessible as possible. 

Julie said: “If you're somebody on a low income that lives in Ilfracombe and has four kids, and you want to come and the kids want to be entertained by Punch and Judy and Mermaid Tales, we don't want to charge you a £5 or £3. It's really important.”

During the weekend collectors circulate with buckets and people are often extraordinarily generous with their donations, sometimes dropping £20 notes in. 

There are also still sponsorship opportunities, including becoming a beer and cider partner, which costs £50 and will see the sponsor’s name displayed above the bar.

As the event has grown, so have the accolades. Last year it won the Pride of Ilfracombe award for volunteering from Ilfracombe Town Council and was runner up in the Flourishing Devon Awards. This year, the mayor of Ilfracombe, Mark Fay, will perform the opening ceremony. 

And in keeping with the growing need for events to become more sustainable and environmentally-friendly, the organisers have supported  Plastic Free Ilfracombe and the North Devon Plastic Free Consortium, in their mission to protect and improve our environment through community-led action to combat plastic pollution, and have worked towards making the Sea Ilfracombe Maritime Festival a fully single-use plastic-free event.  

John explained: “You can only buy a drink now from one of our vendors if you have one of our cups. So, although they're plastic cups, people pay £2 for the cup and don't throw them away. They take them home and keep them. 

“So, that reduced our effect on the environment. We used to get an awful lot of waste at the festival, throwing all those plastic cups, whereas last year, we barely had any. 

“And all of our food vendors all served all of their food in plastic-free containers.”

In addition to the food stalls, there will also be a festival market, and an exciting opportunity to go spotting porpoises, seals, ocean sunfish, (even an occasional dolphin) as well as a myriad of seabirds, all seen regularly from the seafront in Ilfracombe. 

This activity will be run by the Sea Watch Foundation regional coordinators for North Devon, who will also provide information on how to become a volunteer Sea Watcher and tell you all about the ‘Sea Watch Adopt a Dolphin’ scheme.

John added: “Our key message is that without the support of the people that come to our festival, it won't happen again. So we need  contributions, we need our sponsors, we need our food vendors, we need our craft stores, we need people to give feed and join our bucket collections. We desperately want this to continue. And we want people to come and have a good time.”

Entertainment will include Captain Coconut, Punch and Judy, sandcastle competition, Mermaid Tales and Pirates. Live music will include Full Circle, Press Gang, Mass Shanty Crews, Gypfunk and The Greater Good.

 Find out more, including the full programme of music and entertainment at seailfracombe.co.uk/ 

There is also a Facebook page at www.facebook.com/SeaIlfracombe