Virtual Christmas Fair in the Cotswolds a huge success

The virtual Christmas Fair in the Cotswolds is proving a huge success since its launch, earlier this month, raising more than £5,000 so far for WellChild’s work as well as offering a great shopping experience and supporting small businesses.

The online fair is a replacement for the regular Christmas Fair in the Cotswolds held each year at Daylesford Organic Farm in Gloucestershire, which has become a major event in the annual shopping calendar. The fair has moved online this year because of the COVID epidemic and was opened on November 9th by Downton Abbey star Hugh Bonneville. There were three days of online festive demonstrations to mark the opening of the event and, since then, it has been doing a roaring trade with ten per cent of the profits coming to WellChild.

The event features more than 200 stallholders selling the best of British design. The online shopping experience is hosted by Avenue A which has been created to mimic the experience of visiting a shopping event such as the Christmas Fair, making it very easy to find the shops the customer is looking for.

Because of the event’s success so far, the link to the shop is still live, so, if you want to carry on purchasing your Christmas gifts on Avenue A, then you simply need to follow the link to help raise money for WellChild and support stallholders at the same time avenuea.co.uk/TheChristmasFairforWellChild

The success of the fair is particularly important given the difficult times WellChild faces this year when the charity is forecasted to lose sixty per cent of income through cancelled events and partnerships due to the COVID epidemic.

WellChild Senior Events Manager Laura Thompson said: “The virtual Christmas Fair in the Cotswolds is a big change from the usual event but we have been delighted by the support it has received from eager Christmas shoppers, all of whom are contributing to WellChild’s work through their festive purchases.

“We would like to thank all the stallholders for taking part in the event and for donating a percentage of their profits to help WellChild’s work with seriously ill children and their families, and Avenue A for creating such an enjoyable shopping experience. Thank you too to Lucy Greaves, the organiser of the Christmas Fair in the Cotswolds, who took the event online this year in order that it can continue to support our work, and to her hard working committee who make the fair a big success every year.”