Whitstable Oyster Festival
Saturday 23 - Friday 29 July 2025

Organisers of Kent’s most popular community festival have announced that the 2011 Whitstable Oyster Festival will take place between July 23rd and 29th.

In recent years organisers have more than doubled the amount of events within the festival, broadening its appeal and enticing more people to the picturesque Kentish town. The entire festival is still structured around the traditional local customs of the oyster fishing industry but the event now includes family and arts entertainment, and food and drink alongside local heritage and history. As a result, Whitstable’s Oyster Festival has become a major tourist attraction, bringing many thousands of visitors to Whitstable each year.

Festival Director Mair Stratton says that 2010 was a record year for Whitstable “We think audience numbers were up by at least 20% on 2009, which was itself a record year”. She attributes this success to the Festival’s variety and affordability. “The Festival has something to attract all age groups and a lot of it is either free or very low cost, so its just as attractive to entire families as it is to couples and individuals.”

Thanks to a Local Food Grant from the Big Lottery Fund the Festival’s food and drink EPICentre will have a special focus on local foods in 2011. “Local food has always been the major part of the EPICentre” says Mair “but this grant will help us to bring in new elements like free food demonstrations and tastings, and get a lot of people more involved”.

The full Festival programme will be announced in spring 2011.

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