So fast approaches that magical time of year again………Christmas. In the face of adversity Rye Christmas Festival 2015 was a roaring success and the committee have remained focused to bring yet another year of festive, family fun.
In 2015, following the saga of the lighting situation in the town with damaged brackets on listed buildings and the potentially extortionate repair costs, the committee went for a budget option with a big impact. The community were suitably impressed with the efforts and there were plenty of compliments on how fitting they were for the picturesque town.
However, not content with that, this year they want to do better! Chancing upon the luck of St Leonards and Hastings who last year entered the Revive & Thrive Blachere Christmas Lighting competition and won first first and second prize, the team at Rye have entered this year’s competition.
Rye has been shortlisted as one of 13 finalists and members of the Rye Christmas Festival committee will be heading to Colchester at the end of September to give a winning presentation to try and secure £10,000 worth of Christmas lighting! The presentations will take place during the annual Revive & Thrive Conference and will be judged by an independent panel.
All finalists in this competition receive a minimum of £1000 worth of Christmas lights and so the committee are already excitedly playing with ideas to think in with this year’s theme of “Fairy Tales of Old”.
Committee member Andrew May, owner of WJ Bennett says “”I am so excited that we are one of the finalists in the Revive and Thrive Christmas Lighting competition, as it was so frustrating last year to find out about the competition too late to make an entry, so this year we made sure that we entered on time!
We had an amazing festival day last year and we did the best we could with the budget that we had for lighting, but if we can win this competition it would be a real boost for the town and provide all important long term sustainability for the festival.”
The festival on Saturday December 10 is set to be another huge success with some of the winning attractions from last year as well as some fresh activities and events. Keep up-to-date with all the news and booking information by visiting the website www.christmasinrye.co.uk and liking the Facebook page!
Liz is one of the organisers of christmasinrye. Photo: Rye News library