Todmorden Food Festival

“Following the success of Eat, Drink Todmorden in 2014, a number of local independent producers and artisans decided to set up a new style of Food Festival in Todmorden, Calderdale. We were looking for ways to simplify the paperwork process with our exhibitors (as we all have many demands on our time) so the idea of a shopping basket platform with a paperless system for bookings, a customer dashboard to minimise duplication of information input and a secure payment gateway was of interest.

Our previous experience using Event Owl, for Porcus from the exhibitors' side, was very positive so we agreed to employ them for our new event for bookings' processing.

The Event Owl team, provided guidance and assistance on all aspects including legal, loaded up the form information on to their system and set our account up in a very short and efficient timescale. The payment gateway especially was secure and simple to use.

Advertising via social media, including SMS updates, is included in their offer and overall we found it saved us considerable time,and thus money. Their database is both substantial and current and the system is efficient. Pitch fees were transferred directly to our account. Due to this we, as an organisation, were able to absorb Event Owl's fee and not pass it on to the exhibitors as is the norm.

Following the event, we gave them our feedback as they were still then at the 'trial and error' stage and they took on board and incorporated some of our suggestions, We were actually so impressed that we even endorsed their video (we're the good looking ones).

Would we use them again? Definitely. Their system uses technology efficiently and cleverly saving on both time and natural resources, helps minimise errors in bookings and harnesses data capture for successful future events - both from an exhibitor and visitor perspective."

SJ Clegg- Todmorden Food Festival Organiser & Director at Porcus (www.­porcus.­co.­uk)

Photograph credited to Todmorden News