Paul Morgans

By BakewellPie

Buxton Artisan Market

Today is a tale of 2 food and craft/artisan markets.
To begin we wandered over to the food and craft market in the agricultural centre organised by an independent Smiles Events.
We we quite shocked to find that the entrance fee was £5 per person and were approached by a coule who had come to visit and had handed over £10 entrance fee to an event that they thought was free.
A perfectly reasonable assumption as no mention of any cost was mentioned on any of their advertising of the event.
They weren't happy but put on brave smiles and said that they'd bought something anyway.
We paid up and entered to find the most sorry looking market I have ever seen in Bakewell with about 20 traders offering nothing we wanted on the food front and to call some of the stalls crafts was something that defied the trade descriptions act!
After a very depressing 5 mins we left quite shocked at what had happened and I was really angry as it was terrible to think visitors were getting ripped off like this.
We then caught the bus over to Buxtns Artisan market which was a complete contart and really rather wonderful, probably the same amount of stalls but all really good quality.
(Although there was one exception with the sticky toffee flavoured cheese, Yuk!)
We ended up buying cake, rascals, some great cheese and a first for me Ashover Tart based on an old Derbyshire recipe.
With music playing this was a really buzzy and enjoyable atmosphere and deserved the term Artisan.
We're not averse to paying for something which is good quality but this event was FREE...
On returning home and a visit to the fete at the Old Folks Home we went back to the so called food and craft market to see how many people were going in.
The price had now been dropped to £1 per person!
I went up to the lad on the gate and said that I'd paid £10 previously and would like to know if it was possible to get a refund.
As expected he said he couldn't do anything about it as it wasn't up to him.
I believe him.
So be warned what may happen if you ever see a market organised by Smiles Events.
A sad day for Bakewell to have something like this happening in our town.

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