Last Sunday's Leathertown Festival was graced with good weather and a plethora of visitors. According to Downtown Acton BIA manager and festival organizer Matt Galliford, 10,000 people came to the event.
Galliford was also pleased with the number of vendors. “We had 130 vendors in total including various Town of Halton Hills booths and activity setups...Last year the Festival had 96 vendors in total,” he said.
The Leathertown Festival is a street festival whose name pays homage to Acton's tanning industry which was such a big part of its history. The one-day event sees Mill Street East closed to vehicular traffic from the railroad tracks to Main Street. It has been an annual event since 1991, with the exception of 2020 and 2021, when it was not held because of COVID restrictions.
Festival goers could visit and interact with the vendor booths, food carts and activity areas along Mill Street. This year, a Kid's Zone was set up in the Mews parking lot next to Trinity United Church where youngsters could get their faces painted and play games. The car show portion was staged in the Thrift Store parking lot and saw about 50 vintage and classic cars stop by during the day. At the west end of town, Old Vintage Cranks hosted visiting motorcyclists and a number of motorcycles were on display.
As in years previous, musical performances were a major part of the event. This was accomplished on two stages at opposite ends of Mill Street. To save costs, Galliford went with a smaller hay wagon main stage across from the Red Harp, rather than the usual flat bed trailer. But the smaller stage did not detract from winning performances by local favourite Monty Greig and The Crew, along with native son Matthew Bunt who brought his band Wicked Truth. The west-end stage at Willow and Mill Street was run by the Acton Rotary Club and served as a venue for a number of local bands and performers including Tannery Row, Beyond 50, Evensong, Maeve Sharkey and Acton City Limits.
Despite a tight budget for this year's event, this year's Leathertown Festival appears to have been a very well-run event. “I am told that 130 vendors is a new all-time high record,” Galliford said.
He's also thankful to the local sponsors and legion of volunteers who supported the endeavour. “We had a great lineup of local sponsors this year,” he added. “The generosity of each combined with the vendor bookings help us host such a big event. Volunteers started arriving at 7:00am to assist with the setup and direct the vendors to their assigned places.”
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