Lifestyle Festival at Shrewsbury Market Hall, Saturday May 20th

Shrewsbury Market Hall is hosting a Lifestyle Festival on Saturday May 20 to showcase its array of arts, crafts, food and drink and boutique businesses.

The festival is taking place as part of the venue’s participation in the national Love Your Local Market campaign, being held from May 17 to 31, to celebrate British markets.

The Lifestyle Festival will include meet the artist events, craft workshops, food and drink tastings, various demonstrations as well as an evening celebration in which the market’s cosmopolitan cafes and restaurants, a pop-up wine bar and a brand new gin bar will stay open until 10pm.

Daytime attractions will include demonstrations in sugarcraft, watercolour painting, wool spinning and weaving, cooking with spice blends and upcycling to create beautiful home decorations.

Shrewsbury-based nationally acclaimed artist Linda Edwards will be at Lovely Little World, from noon to 2pm, where visitors can join her for a Prosecco and canape reception and talk to her about her work. There will be a special promotion on her famous Sunny Side Art prints of Shrewsbury and Shropshire.

Market Hall eateries open late for the evening include the award-winning Bird’s Nest Café, House of Yum Thai street food restaurant, Café AleOli Spanish tapas restaurant and Shrewsbury’s home of the Chinese dumpling, Moli Tea House.

Moli will be tantalising tastebuds with a special ‘Dumpling Festival”, from 10am to 10pm, taking diners on a gastronomic journey to different dumpling flavours, including both meat and vegan recipes.  

The restaurants will be joined by specialist vintner Iron and Rose, which is holding a pop-up wine bar, and exciting new gin bar Gindifferent, which will be open on the gallery floor of the Market Hall for the very first time. At the turntables will be DJ Buzzword, providing groovy tunes.

During the day artist Karen Duffy will be demonstrating watercolour technique while mixed media artist Rosie Read will be working in her studio and inviting visitors to create small artist books or architectural collage.

Sugarcraft and baking specialist The Icing Tip is staging two sugarcraft demonstrations. The first, at 10am, will focus on making roses and the second, at noon, will centre on calla lilies.

From 10am to 12-noon woolcraft specialist Ewe & Ply will demonstrate peg loom weaving with different fleeces and from 2pm to 4pm spinning with drop spindles and a wheel. From 5pm to 7pm they will hold a drop-in ‘wool fiddling’ gathering for wool crafters to work on a project of their choice.

Home accessories boutique Lovely Little World will show people how to upcycle their old lampshades, vases and containers by jazzing them up with the creative use of fairy lights to make eye-catching home decorations.

New spice blend company Black Box will show keen cooks how to blend their own spices for marinades, stews and barbecue rubs while Romy Design will demonstrate how to make glass planters.

LIFESTYLE FESTIVAL AT A GLANCE – daytime events:

Meet the Artist Linda Edwards – 12 noon to 2pm: join Linda for a Prosecco and canape reception at Lovely Little World (main market floor)

Upcycling with lights – Lovely Little World (various times during the day)

Sugarcraft demonstrations – demonstration area, The Icing Tip. 10am: making roses; Noon: making calla lilies (gallery floor)

Woolcraft demonstrations Ewe & Ply demonstrations: 10am – noon: peg loom weaving; 2pm – 4pm:  spinning with drop spindles; 5pm – 7pm: wool fiddling drop-in (gallery floor)

Watercolour technique – Artist Karen Duffy (throughout the day, gallery floor)

Architectural collage & making artist books – Artist Rosie Read (throughout the day, gallery floor)

Making spice blends - Black Box (throughout the day, gallery floor)

Making glass planters – Romy Design (throughout the day, gallery floor)

EVENING CELEBRATION – food and drink until 10pm:

The Bird’s Nest Café – good vibes, good street food (from 6.30pm)

House of Yum – Thai Street food

Café AleOli – Spanish tapas

Moli Tea House – Chinese Dumpling Festival

Iron & Rose – pop-up wine bar

Gindifferent – gin bar (gallery floor)

Music by DJ Buzzword from 5pm