A special weekend of entertainment - with fireworks - at Ipswich Waterfront
Waterfront businesses have pledged their support for the special Summer Celebratiion event now being planned for the weekend of Saturday and Sunday, August 6 and 7.
There was shock and dismay when it was announced there would be no Ipswich Maritime Festival in 2016.
After 50,000 people attended the successful Maritime Festival weekend in 2015, local businesses said there should be a 2016 attraction.
The council said, Yes, they would organise a summer event at Ipswich Waterfront this year.
It is promised to be a weekend of music, entertainment, crafts and food around the quayside, with circus skills and dance and a firework finale on the Sunday night.
Steve Haslam, of TLC Inns, owners of the Grand Central American Bar and Grill, said: “This is good news.
“This Waterfront is the flagship for Ipswich and we need more events to bring people down here to discover it.
“There are great restaurants and other businesses which will support it.
“We will do so.
“The businesses will always support the council and these special events.
“We could do with having more events here, to bring people in to Ipswich.
“As businesses we should get together and put on special themed and music events, once a month, through the summer.”
Pub landlord and chef Mike Keen, who runs The Brewery Tap and the Cult Cafe Bar said: “This is great news and it will be a great attraction to the Waterfront.
“We are really looking forward to it. We will be very involved, putting live music on, and with an outside bar and street food as well.
“I think it will go very well.”
Continental Colours Cafe owner Kie Humphreys added: “This has become a regular event in the calender, and something that people expect to be going on every year.
“It is a great free event for the public and great attraction bringing people to the town.
“It is also a great showcase for the Waterfront as well. I am sure the businesses will support it again.
“It is just needs the good weather too.”
Marcella McGovern, weddings and events manager at Isaacs on the Quay, said: “We are really looking forward to it.
“Hopefully it will bring a lot more people down here, to discover the Waterfront, and who will want to come back again.
“We will support it and think it will be very good.
“We already have the Dolly Show booked for the Sunday, which is always very popular.
“We will prepare for it, just like we do for a Bank Holiday weekend or the Maritme Festival.
“We think it will be very good.”
The borough council says it should be a great new event.
Councillor Bryony Rudkin, Ipswich Borough Council’s Culture & Leisure portfolio-holder, said: “This is sure to be another great weekend for Ipswich and we hope to attract many visitors to the Waterfront and the town. The event has a packed programme of activities for all ages including cooking demonstrations, live music, fun fair rides, workshops and market with a fantastic firework to close out the event, I would encourage everyone to save the date in their diaries.”
However there is some bad news for the town centre and Waterfront as the Wheels event, held for the first time in July last year at the Waterfront, has been moved this summer to Chantry Park, where the council can offer free parking.
It will charge a small entrance fee at Chantry Park of £2 for adults, with children getting in free.
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