Springtime Live is axed as Yorkshire Agricultural Society switches its focus
The Yorkshire Agricultural Society has announced it will no longer stage its flagship Springtime Live showcase of food, farming and the countryside for families, despite the event attracting more than 4,000 visitors to the Great Yorkshire Showground annually.
Thousands of children and adults have flocked to the Harrogate venue over the Easter holidays for more than a decade to meet sheep and pigs and attend a raft of free demonstrations, tractor trailer rides, displays and hands-on workshops, from horse shoeing and archaeological dig experiences to drystone walling.
The decision has come to some as a surprise given the high demand for the event.
In 2023, Show Director Charles Mills, said: “This is our eighth Springtime Live and it gets more and more popular every year.”
Last year, Show Director Rachel Coates added: “This is always a sell-out event that entertains and excites young children about farming, animals and the countryside.”
Allister Nixon, the society’s chief executive, said all its charitable activities needed to be “relevant and impactful” and so the organisation had conducted a survey of its 12,500 members early last year about what was most valuable to them.
He said: “The themes coming back from that survey was networking, knowledge sharing and career development in agriculture. Those were the spaces that they felt they needed more support from the society in.
"We do a lot over the year in the primary school space, with Countryside Days, a hugely successful two-day interactive event for thousands of primary school children at the Great Yorkshire Showground in June, the Discovery Zone at the Great Yorkshire Show, Apple Day, teacher training days and the veg box competition.
"The charity has got finite funds, it does need to review how it spends the funds it generates itself from its commercial activities."
Mr Nixon said the decision to end Springtime Live had been a tough one, particularly as it had proved popular.
He said the society wanted to “send a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has been involved in Springtime Live over the last 12 years, including public, exhibitors, stewards and staff”.
Mr Nixon said the event had not generated funds for the society and had been priced in a way that the society could fund it jointly with the public to ensure it featured high quality content.
Last year tickets cost £13 for adults and £8 for children or £37 for a family ticket.
He added: "In place of Springtime Live and taking on the feedback from our members we are launching our first farming conference. We hope that will be a day of insight, inspiration and connection for the farming community across the north of England with a view to strengthening the industry within the region.
"We are also going to be launching another event towards the end of next year which will be aimed at secondary school and college students with a view to helping promote careers in agriculture and helping to attract the best talent into the industry.
"We have finite funds and the feedback from members we feel this is the best way of using the funds that we have. We want to stay close to our members’ feedback and have a very good charitable activities committee – there’s a lot of thought that goes into how we programme our activities around the year.
"We are looking forward to the two new events and hopefully they will be equally well received and rewarding, albeit for difference audiences to Springtime Live.”