Set in the looming shadow of Wales’ largest castle, Caerphilly’s Big Cheese Festival returns for a 19th year of family fun and entertainment.
Caerphilly town centre will transform into a bustling cacophony of street entertainers, living history encampments, music, dance, and funfair rides, with over 80,000 people expected to visit over the free event between Friday, July 29 and Sunday, July 31.
The jam-packed three-day festival kicks off with a bang on Friday July 29, with the legendary Great Cheese Race providing plenty of entertainment around the castle grounds at 6.30pm, with music, entertainment and the famous firework show rounding off the rest of the opening night.
Throughout Saturday and Sunday, there is food, stalls, and shows galore, ensuring there’s something for everyone.
Whether you feast at the food and cheese market, shop in the craft market, or step back in time with medieval re-enactments, this year’s Big Cheese Festival is set to be the most wide-ranging yet.
Check out our free Big Cheese guide below
[pdf width=”100%”]https://caerphilly.observer/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/CO_Big_Cheese_Guide_2016_online.pdf[/pdf]
Why??????????
I’m shocked people still ride in those overpriced contraptions, eat expensive ‘gourmet’ food and buy up all the tat from the tents in the muddy field.
I get many more complaints than support for this event. Maybe it should move to Blackwood, or some other place, for a few years. In the early years it was a friendly event where locals took their own food and drink and listened to bands, watched the various shows and generally had a fun weekend. Not anymore, over priced fairground rides, over priced rubbishy food, over priced drinks and massive inconvenience for the people who live here.
I would be interested to hear from anyone who lives in the town who actually likes Cheesy Weekend. Maybe there are some left who do like it but everyone I talk with on the street and in the pubs is fed up with it. In modern parlance the Big Cheese is ‘old.’
Come down to Graig Community Centre, Bassaleg on Saturday, Steve the super talented award winning chef from The Ruperra Arms will be hosting a food festival with lots of real food on offer from local producers, NOT overpriced burger vans from Bristol! We’ll have plenty of real gourmet home made food from Welsh traders and craft from highly skilled artists from right here in Caerphilly, NO Chinese tat. A family friendly fun atmosphere, starts at 10am, a much better alternative to the big cheese, come along and support your local community and local traders.
Now, thats they way these events should be organised, clearly better done by the community than by the expensive, financially out of control events office of The Renegeration Section in the Council Offices. The Big Cheese does absoluely nothing for `regeneration` aspects of the Town or Caerphilly. Money generated on this `site` this weekend will be trousered by transient traders, it will, by Monday Morning, be banked in English Banks, lost forever to the Welsh local economy. This event costs the local ratepayers, this year, more than £78,000 over income generated from traders, ( £58,000 last year) this does not take account for Policing Vosts, cleaning costs, and stewardship costs. It is time to kick this event into the long grass, what is it for? and who does it benefit, besides the transient traders from over the border?.