Trafford Live family festival organisers bowled over by record visitors

Trafford Live family festival organisers bowled over by record visitors

This year’s Trafford Live family festival was a huge success – attracting record numbers of visitors!
 
Trafford Council’s  annual event, which is in its fourth year and was hosted in conjunction with Lancashire Cricket Club, smashed all records for attendance figures on Sunday.
 
Almost 14,000 cricket fans watched the Trafford Live T20 Vitality Blast fixture between Lancashire and Durham and thousands enjoyed the activities, displays and live music in the grounds of Trafford Town Hall.
 
Families flocked to the free event, which ran from 10am to 4pm,  featuring exhibitors including LegoLand, the Imperial War Museum, The National Trust, the RSPB, Guide Dogs for the Blind, emergency services, Armed Forces as well as a large number of local community and voluntary  groups.
 
The bouncy castle, climbing wall and sports activities proved very popular with visitors as well as the bands playing live music in the Council’s sunken garden.
 
Cllr Graham Whitham, Trafford Council’s Executive Member for Communities and Partnerships, said:

This year’s Trafford Live was fantastic. Thousands of local families came along to our free fun event and had the time of their lives. It was a huge celebration of sport, leisure and culture and it was great to see the community out in force enjoying the music and entertainment.

We were delighted to partner up with Lancashire Cricket Club and thrilled that the cricket match was also a big success. Our estimations on numbers suggest this was the most visited Trafford Live since it began. Thank you to everyone who came along and to our dedicated volunteers and staff for making it happen.”

    
 
Lancashire Cricket Chief Executive, Daniel Gidney, said:

The Vitality Blast continues to be one of the most vibrant and entertaining competitions in the world. Tickets sales at Emirates Old Trafford increased by over 30 per cent last year and we are on course to grow that number further again this summer.

Sunday’s match was a proud day for all involved with the Club. To achieve this record T20 attendance (13,710) is a phenomenal milestone, achieved through intelligent scheduling, thought-through ticket pricing and a co-ordinated marketing approach alongside Trafford Council and the wider game of cricket in the North West, including the All Stars Cricket programme, and it was great to see the ground so full, capped off by a fine performance on the field.

The number of families at the game was particularly pleasing. As a Club, we’re working hard to attract new audiences to the game of cricket and we see the Vitality Blast as a great form of entertainment to achieve this. We've got six more home Vitality Blast matches this season and we hope to welcome them, and all the other first-timers through the All Stars Cricket initiative we had on Sunday, to another fixture at Emirates Old Trafford."

The Mayor of Trafford, Cllr Rob Chilton, attended the event and handed out awards to 80 volunteers as part of the National Volunteer Week schedule.