Thank you to everyone who was involved in this year's Wigan Food and Drink Festival 2013. Whether you were a partner, sponsor or foodie enthusiast, you helped to create an event that shone a positive spotlight on Wigan and contributed to the local food and drink economy.

I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of WLCT to thank everyone for the wonderful support and enthusiasm provided. Although we have yet to carry out a full event appraisal, we know that the 2013 Festival was extremely successful:

• Attendances at the Wigan CAMRA Beer Festival once again are expected to exceed 4000.
• Over 1400 tickets were purchased for our ticketed Food and Drink events in restaurants.
• Visits to Wigan Town Centre during the Festival were up by 4% year on year. An estimated 3000 people visited the 4-day Kitchen Theatre and over 30,000 people attended the Continental Market and street concert by the Lancashire Hotpots.
• The Food and Drink Festival web site was visited by 20,000 unique visitors in the 3 months prior to the festival.
• 1000 downloads of the Virtual Recipe Cards.

These are incredibly challenging times for local event and culture providers. We would not of achieved what we did without your support.

Because of this year’s success we fully expect to provide a 2014 event, building a bigger and better Food and Drink Festival for the benefit of Wigan, the region and the local food and drink sector.  

Thank you once again.

Keith L Bergman, Head of Service, WLCT