Thousands at Big Eat Festival celebrating Hampshire food

Countless vendors lined up underneath the picturesque chapel in the Royal Victoria Country Park for the start of the fourth annual Big Eat Festival, which runs until Monday evening.

Families from as far as Manchester came down to the south coast for the free festival that also hosts live music throughout the day and a dog show on Monday.

Master Chef UK 2023 Winner Chariya Khattiyot attended and her stall had one of the longest queues. (Image: Newsquest) Ray White travelled down from the city in the north-west of England with his partner and two children, saying it was a pleasure to see “smiling faces”.

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“There’s so much choice here and we’ve really enjoyed something we’d never heard of before a few weeks ago,” Ray said.

The festival celebrates the best street food in Hampshire by championing local traders providing culinary tastes from around the world.

Elliot, Alanna and CJ Smith, who run Rebel Soul Street Food. (Image: Newsquest) CJ Smith from Gosport started his brand Rebel Soul in October and said that the Big Eat Festival was an event he wanted to showcase his food at from the start.

Thousands of people attended the first day of the festival. (Image: Newsquest) “We did a bit of Googling to see what it was about,” he said.

“I found Big Eat and had a look at previous years, it’s massively popular as you can tell from the footfall here.

“A lot of well-respected vendors have done it in the past and figured it was something we wanted to do as well.”

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CJ is working the entire weekend with relatives Elliot and Alanna Smith, and thousands of people were sat on the grass eating with their families as the rain stayed away on Saturday afternoon.

Dogs were also welcome at the event, with several stalls selling treats and toys.

Lilah Waite from Paws-Box said there were “way more dogs” than she “ever thought” there would be at the festival.

Lilah Waite from Paws-Box came from Gosport. (Image: Newsquest) The Gosport native said: “We didn’t know there would be this many dogs, they’ve got a dog show on Monday and we saw that online so we thought it was worth coming to the festival.

“It lends itself really well for dogs to come and a dog show, it’s really good to have that.”

Other stalls sold home decorations, cakes and fresh cold drinks.