General Discussion

 You have 5mins to get there

Somebody has posted on eod that it was over by 6

I walked down with my kids, got there at 6.20 and it had already finished.  Not impressed.  The Carnival Programme said it started at 6.30.  Two dissapointed kids and mine weren't the only ones.  

I thought judging of the Best Constructed and Fancy Dress was at 6pm! And the Raft Race at 6.30pm

Disapointed Kids EmmaJ? I totally understand but I was a disapointed Adult too. That was an appauling evening. If it says 6.30 then you ecpect it to be either still happening or not quite started. We were all disapointed we watch it from my Mother and Father In Laws house on marine parade each year, though now living in our own house with two kids we decided to push them down to watch to find exactly the same. What on earth is happening. Saying that I heard there were only around 6 entrants from multiple people, back in the day used to have around 20 taking part, shame not to see more participating in a great and local event that we don't really see in many places. Don't think we can blame carnival for lack of entrants but could understand if people are now put off by it.

I made the point in a previous post that there's an assumption that everyone knows what's happening.  They don't, it needs promotion.  I was down on the lawn today and caught the kids fun run.  Only a handful participated even though there were plenty of kids around.  There was no announcement, no build up, no drumming up of entrants, nothing to draw attention to it.  I wasn't at the raft race but if the details had been advertised upfront we'd have participated.  They shouldn't  rely on the same group turning up each year, numbers will only decrease.   It seems like the organisers don't know how to stage an event, they're clearly out of their depth.  I hope they're not too proud to recognise it. 

Of course I was disappointed too TheObserver. However its nothing more than I expect from this type of event now (from previous experience).  Explaining to a six year old why he had missed the race that he was looking forward to all day was the main issue.  

Big thank you to Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue service Concert Band. loved the music just a shame we had to leave early to go to Ipplepen for Carnival wish i could've stayed until the end of Concert & thank you to Step 2 Starz sorry to of missed your performance we also missed the Raft Race but we did have a fun night at Ipplepen                                                                                 taken from their own fb page, no interest in Dawlish Carnival whatsover, unbelievable

Says it all really :-(

@EmmaJ your quite right. so who went to the carnival at ipplepen carnival from the dawlish committee? and who actually ran the raft race? can anyone confirm. it sound's so much to be a split committee of one group interested in dawlish and one in themselves. so let's get some facts flowing if anyone knows? and i agree we can overlook it and laugh at the situations but kids are not growing up with the carnival the way we used to. i bet next year i could organise a raft race and have loads of people involved, people really have lots faith, interest and morale right now, and that's a shame.