Were you at the Game Fair this year?
The Game Fair at Hatfield House was a winner this year. Edward Wills reports back ...
Winners of the Best Dressed Lady competition at the 2017 Game Fair. Lynette Davies with runner-up Lyndsey Pointon
This year, the Game Fair was once again a great success with more than 116,000 people appearing at last month’s event at Hatfield House in Hertfordshire. This was an 8% increase from 2016 and featured 800 stallholders which spanned the site’s total 396 acres.
And now a Christmas Game Fair for next year
James Gower, managing director of the Game Fair, announced this year that there will be an additional event in 2018. The first Christmas Game Fair will be held inside Victoria House and outside at Bloomsbury Square in central London on 23-25 November 2018. This modern seasonal festival will include all the goods, food, art and service that attendees to the Game Fair have been used to for the past 59 years.
Mr Gower went on to add that: “It will provide a winter focal point offering a distilled and magical essence of this cherished British institution. Expect serious debate, fine dining, evening networking and the finest products from shooting to fashion and delicious food, drink and, of course, Christmas gifts.”
Events enjoyed by Shooting UK included:
- Watching the ‘Best Dressed Gamekeeper’ awards
- Getting new ideas watching The Field Game Cookery Theatre
- Watching country folk go by and enjoy themselves …
Tickets for the next Game Fair are already available at www.thegamefair.org. It will be held at Ragley Hall in Warwickshire next summer, before returning to Hatfield House the following year, with the venue alternating between the two each consecutive year.
Teresa Dent receives the donation from Patrick Galbraith, editor of Shooting Times
Over £2,000 donated to woodcock conservation
In other news at the Fair, the Shooting Times has donated £2,175 to the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust to help ongoing woodcock conservation research. Editor Patrick Galbraith presented the cheque, which was raised through our Woodcock Club, to Teresa Dent, chief executive of the GWCT, at the Game Fair in July. He said: “It is such a pleasure to support the conservation of this wonderful, fascinating bird. The Woodcock Club dinner was a brilliant event and I am very much looking forward to next year.”
