Awarded in the ‘Best Event’ category at the Bristol, Bath & Somerset Tourism Awards last year, othe pumpkin extravaganza is back! But what else can we expect this scary season?
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00We're at Avon Valley Adventure and Wildlife Park. We have three sites really within the park. We've
00:05got our adventure park which is for young children and families and then we have our event sites,
00:11one which we're standing on now and we've also got another one just over the way which is currently
00:16hosting our fear event as well. So it's super busy at the moment. And what can people expect?
00:21It depends what you're up for. If you're up for family frights and fun then you can come on down
00:26to the pumpkin patch where you can pick from over 100,000 pumpkins that we have this year
00:31or if you're up for something a little bit more adrenaline pumping than maybe fear.
00:34And you know what? We're in a very weird time in the world. We're in a cost of living crisis.
00:39We're coming out of Covid and there are some things in the world that are quite bleak.
00:43What is coming to Avon Valley going to do for locals?
00:47I think it's going to bring a smile to people's faces and I think it's that family time together
00:53and having that time to just come with whoever it might be, parents, carers, grandparents, friends
00:59and picking that pumpkin, going on over to our marketplace, having a look at the little
01:04stalls that we have in terms of our shop but also our bar and our coffee area, our donut box
01:11and we have live events as well. So it's a wonderful event to come in, soak the atmosphere.
01:16Yes, so people come on site with your wellies and go through our beautiful site here to pick
01:22their own pumpkin, one that suits them, they want to take home, maybe carve or just eat.
01:28And we've also got some event stuff happening at the top over there. We've got bands playing,
01:32we've got a fire show, we've got some spooky characters to meet, marshmallows to toast.
01:37So it's really up to you what you want to do on site and you can just dwell in a very beautiful
01:42setting. And pumpkin patch then, have you grown these yourself? Have you bought them? Tell me
01:48about that. Yes, so the 100,000 pumpkins that you see around us at the moment, they are actually
01:54grown from our old seeds. So when we find pumpkins that don't quite make the cut here on the site,
01:59we put them in our dumpkin boxes and those then rot but the seeds then can be taken out and
02:05planted back into one of our fields and then we also get some new seeds as well to plant every
02:09year. I think it's been quite relaxed but energetic and what I mean by that is you can see that people
02:16are just taking in the atmosphere, they're enjoying being disconnected I think from all of
02:21the outside worries, social media and just being present. And Avon Valley as a business, it's
02:27family-run, it's been in the same family for years and years. What do you think it means to them that
02:32you're progressing and every year you're getting bigger as a company? Do you know what Emma, actually
02:36we've kind of come full circle. We started off as a pick your own 35 years ago and now we're back
02:42here with our pumpkin patch and the site has grown massively and we are still very much a family
02:48at the core. All the team are regarded as part of the Avon Valley family and so are our guests,
02:54they're an extension of that. We welcome them on site whether it's here or it's over one of our
02:58other experiences.