For the date of our next Festival and any news flashes, please view our Home page.
At each Festival, we encourage visitors to write their comments, whether good or bad, in a book placed in the entrance hall. We always address any concerns you raise and here we share the most common ones with you, together with our responses. Your views are important to us, so please continue to express your comments in our book on Festival day.
The Venue
There is insufficient signposting of the event
The whole of Port Sunlight Village is a Conservation Area and, as such, the Council will not allow us to put up our own signs. We did approach the AA, but were astounded to discover that the cost would be in excess of £1,000 for each separate Festival. If Port Sunlight does not appear in your roadmap, aim for Bromborough or Bebington (depending on your direction), then follow the ordinary road signs for the village. Elsewhere on this website, we have provided directions to the venue - please click on the link to find them quickly: Festival Directions
Hulme Hall is not large enough – it becomes too crowded
We have become a victim of our own success! The number of shoppers has increased enormously over the years, which does mean that the halls become somewhat crowded at times, but that does make for a terrific atmosphere.
Hulme Hall is well situated with good road and rail access from all directions, is well placed for Liverpool Airport (yes, some do fly in!) & there is plenty of local free parking. It is also a beautiful building in an area which offers plenty of places of interest for those partners wishing to escape the delights of rubber stamping. We have tried to find a larger venue, within the region, which can at least match all the benefits of Hulme Hall, but cannot come up with anything better.
We review the layout of stands each year and make adjustments to ease the congestion wherever we can. This seems to have worked in recent times as many of you have now told us that you felt it was not as crowded, even though we had sold all the tickets.
To help minimise congestion, we would appeal to those accompanied by small children not to bring prams & pushchairs to the event if at all possible! It would also help if visitors would use the room set aside for seating and relaxation as their meeting point, rather than congregating in the entrance hallway.
It’s too hot, with poor ventilation
The building is more than 150 years old & the windows have been over-painted many times, making some impossible to open. However, we do make sure that on hot days we open as many as we can as soon as we have access to the building and, when possible, we open all the doors in the main hall. The day before the show, we ask the management to turn off the central heating, but it takes a long time for the heat to dissipate.
The Services
The toilets are in a poor state
Could the refreshment area be larger, with faster service?
The ramp for disabled access is difficult to negotiate
All these matters are the responsibility of Hulme Hall’s management, to whom we have passed your comments.
We check the toilet facilities at the start of the day to ensure they are clean & stocked with paper, etc, but if you subsequently have cause for complaint, please speak to anyone wearing a HSNW badge & we'll immediately ask the duty Hall Manager to deal with the problem.
We have no control over the refreshments area whatsoever – please direct any comments to the Hall’s own staff at the counter there.
We are told that because Hulme Hall is a listed building, the regulations do not permit any alteration to the frontage to provide a permanent ramp for disabled access, so there is unfortunately no alternative to the existing wooden ramp.
More seating is needed for resting and for partners who are not interested in stamping
We do provide a small area in the second hall but the only way in which this could be increased in size would be by reducing the number of retailers. Luckily we have been fortunate enough to have had very good weather for virtually all shows so far, and there are some lovely "green" areas immediately outside & in the village for rest & recuperation. We stamp your wrist when you arrive so that you can go in & out as you wish – if you are over-enthusiastic when washing your hands & the stamped image disappears, please ask for another on your way out!
In the show invitation flyer we list local places of interest, including an art gallery and a garden centre within the village, for anyone wishing to take a break from the event.
The Festival Itself
Please start earlier and finish later
Could you hold the show over the whole weekend?
Let’s have the show more often than twice a year
Many of our retailers come a very long distance. Most arrive on the Friday in order to set up in time, but the more local ones come in as soon as we have access to the building on the Saturday. Once we have closed at 4 pm, the retailers have only 2 hours to pack up & vacate the premises before the 6 pm deadline which, as you can imagine, is very difficult for them. So unfortunately longer opening hours are impossible.
Spreading the show over 2 days would increase everyone’s costs alarmingly – doubling the stand fees & overnight accommodation, etc – and would do little to reduce overcrowding as the majority of shoppers would not come on only one day or the other, but on both (as experience has shown at other major venues).
As many of you will remember, we did increase the show's frequency to twice yearly, but please spare a thought for the 4 organisers – we are a Club, not a business, and the hundreds of hours we need to spend organising each show have to be fitted in around work & family commitments which makes more frequent Festivals impossible!
Could access be permitted earlier for the disabled?
We do sympathise with the difficulties you face in such a crowd of people. However, as mentioned in the previous answer, the Hall is a hive of activity prior to opening at 10:30 am while the retailers unpack their stock & set up their stands. It is therefore a Health & Safety risk to allow access to any member of the public before that time. Usually the crowd begins to thin out a little during the afternoon so, if you can bear to wait, it may be more comfortable for you then.
Almost Finally …
It isn’t an easy task keeping so many shoppers, over 30 exhibitors, the Hulme Hall management & staff, Club members & the Festival Committee members happy at the same time, but we do our very best! On balance, judging by all the positive feedback & the Festival’s ever-increasing popularity, we must be getting most of it right. Please do continue to support the event, and don’t forget to add your own comments or suggestions to the book.
And Finally …
Here are a few of our favourite comments.
"Cash and feet ran out before the magic!"
"I’ve spent too much money- I hope my husband doesn’t find out how much." (Sadly, there’s nothing much we can say to this – except that we’re all in the same boat!!!)