From a massed local choir to an afternoon of live bands, the Music Stage at Frome Agricultural & Cheese Show has a soundtrack running almost all day.
There’s always a moment at an agricultural show when you realise you’ve been on your feet for several hours. You’ve watched the livestock judging. You’ve investigated the competitive vegetables. Someone has persuaded you to buy considerably more cheese than you intended. The children have been face-painted and you’ve watched a man do something deeply inadvisable on a quad bike.
This is the point at Frome Show when we suggest finding the Music Stage. Because while much of the showground is about competition, spectacle and things to do, this is somewhere simply to stop for a while, find something good to eat or drink, have a bit of a sit down … and there’s live music running almost all day.
The programme starts at 10.15am with Frome Choir, followed at 11am by The Frukes – Frome’s own, rather brilliant and always entertaining, ukulele band. At 12 noon, Frome Town Band takes over.
Then the afternoon changes gear. At 2.30pm, Minervas take to the stage to get everyone jumping, before the Young Martyrs bring their Might Just Be Enough tour to Frome: they’re on stage at 4pm to close up the day’s live music.
It’s a great line-up – local, eclectic and not trying too hard to be anything other than a very good soundtrack to a September Saturday.
And there is plenty to fill the hours between sets
If you’ve been following our Frome Show previews, you’ll already know that tomorrow’s programme is enormous. Paul Hannam will be making quad bikes fly in his ATV Stunt Show. The Little Show-Goers Play Zone and Countryside Pursuits area are packed with activities included in admission. The Horticulture & Handicraft tent is waiting for those of us who cannot leave an agricultural show without inspecting the competitive vegetables.
And then there’s the Cheese Pavilion! With around 200 international entries in this year’s Global Cheese Awards, let along the UK ones, it’s not some little marquee with a few Cheddars in it – we’re talking an enormous hall of cheese. And at 3pm, the Grand Auction of Champion Cheeses begins … not forgetting that this year you can bid for a block weighing up to 20kg!
Add the livestock, trade stands, food and everything else happening around the showground, and this isn’t really an event to pop into for an hour, it’s a Great Day Out.
And when your feet finally demand a rest, you know where the music is.
Frome Agricultural & Cheese Show is TOMORROW – Saturday 12th September – at West Woodlands Showground.
Get your tickets from fromecheeseshow.co.uk.
Gate price: £19 adults, £6 under 15’s, under 5’s free.
