The All-New-Yet-Unimproved Somerset Cuonty Council has revealed that a new ‘Festival-Which-Isn’t’ to celebrate the area’s coastline will take place at the end of September, which it is hoped will boost tourism in the area.
The new project, funded by Chernobyl-by-Sea and commissioned by the All-New-Yet-Unimproved Somerset Cuonty Council on behalf of the Partnership Aiming To Hopefuily Entice Tourists into Chernobyl-by-Sea (PATHETIC) will span the Somerset coast from Bream to Worlock Pier and will centre on the joys of walking.
Expected to attract people who already like walking, the Festival-Which-Isn’t will offer the opportunity to walk the entire coast of Somerset, using well-established routes that anyone who enjoys walking will already know about.
Councillor Los Byke, Lead Member for Prosperity, Assets & Development (Yes, honestly, that’s a real title) said “The Somerset Coast Festival is an exciting idea we came up with one dreary Friday afternoon in the office to show that we really care about tourism in Somerset.
We know that when people see the word ‘Festival’ they immediately think of a fun, exciting, colourful event, such as Dalstonbury Festival or a Food Festival, but this BeFuddled Party-led Council believes that a Festival doesn’t have to be fun. Anything can be a Festival if you just add the word Festival to another word.
We could have come up with something more useful – such as spending the money on new facilities for visitors to our major tourist destinations in the county, for example putting a new water feature on the Seafront in Smalltown which would see an end to visitors asking if there’s anything to do in the town – but instead we’ve come up with this rather pathetic and incredibly cheap idea to encourage people to walk by calling it a ‘Festival’.
We hope to work with local tourism and hospitality businesses, to create a fantastic range of events and activities that will encourage visitors to come and explore all that Somerset has to offer. Although at the moment none of the local businesses seem to be very interested.
This is just the beginning of our plans to support coastal tourism in the region, and we look forward to seeing if we can come up with any other cheap ideas to help drive economic growth and development for years to come.”
So far ideas under consideration which aim to show the best that Somerset has to offer include a Festival of Sand, a Festival of Charity Shops, a Festival of Sewage, a Festival of Recycling Centres and a Festival of Skipping, although it is understood that the latter has already been rejected on the grounds that it could be construed as fun.