When you put the country community in a field, you can guarantee that the food will be good and they will want to show you more about how the countryside works…
Wow, well what a fabulous few days we had at the Game Fair at Blenheim Palace, the sun shone down, the crowds turned out and much fun was had by all.
The Game Fair is heralded as “an annual gathering for people passionate about countryside pursuits, and the Great British Countryside” and it certainly delivered on that front.
With a huge range of brands retailing from their stands; the chance to ‘have a go’ at shooting and fishing, leading food producers selling their wares in The Great Taste Market, plus lots of the leading countryside organisations providing hospitality and more importantly education on their stands, there really was something for everyone.
All three days were sunny, so the food and drink stops around the event were most welcome, but we also saw many picnics being enjoyed. One of the things I love about the Game Fair is the amount of game food on offer with pheasant goujons being a family favourite for us.
The Game Fair is one of those events that needs a little bit of a pre-planned approach so you can make sure that you see your favourite arena events or demonstrations, as well as shopping. It’s a huge site, so comfortable walking shoes are essential, luckily the trees provided welcome shade here and there, which was hotly sought after by those with dogs and prams.
The Game Fair is run by Stable Events, with all the promotion of the event being handled by Coate PR and it was great to the famous gun salute hitting the front page of the Telegraph. With a record breaking 136,000 visitors and over 700 exhibitors, 2024 was one of the biggest Game Fairs yet.
With fieldsports and the countryside coming under fire so regularly in the media, raising the profile of country events, organisations and brands is key to getting more understanding out there about how much the country community contributes to keeping the countryside and the food chain going. There was much talk of the future of fieldsports under the new government and the Countryside Alliance reported that there was strong engagement with cabinet ministers and rural MPs visiting their stand to try and get a handle on the current issues being debated.
I (Emma) was at the event for 2 days and there were still people that I didn’t manage to catch up with, The Game Fair is such a popular country gathering place that it takes some time to move from stand to stand and then there’s the people you bump into while you’re wandering around.
I may have missed it in previous years, but this year I really noticed the amount of competitions that were running across the whole Game Fair. As well as the Game Fair sponsor Welligogs best dressed competition, there were all sorts of other ingenious ideas to tempt passers-by onto stands.
Two of our favourites were Mackenzie & George’s doggy Landrover photo competition – we loved the model Landrover built especially for pooch posing, plus we loved the customer engagement from Schoffel in asking customers to vote for their next colour gilet. We’re keen to know the winners of both these competitions.
As I drove home from a busy couple of days, I couldn’t help but reflect on all the people I’d seen, and the word that really sums it all up for me is collaboration. So many people were working together to educate, to boost each other’s brands and to just generally cheerlead for each other, which for me is the countryside at its very best!
I’m also excited that we have got some great interviews coming up on Countrywoman’s Guide with some of the exhibitors who were at the Game Fair, which we’ll be sharing with you shortly, so look out for those in your inboxes.
The Game Fair returns to Ragley Hall next year – 25th – 27th July 2025