The Lord Mayor of Belfast, Councillor Deirdre Hargey, launching this year’s Autumn Fair in Botanic Gardens.

The Autumn Fair in Belfast’s beautiful Botanic Gardens returned recently - with fun-filled activities for all ages to enjoy.

The festival celebrated a weekend of flowers, food and free family fun as the seasonal favourite took place from 12.30pm to 6pm on each day. Visitors were treated to one of the largest flower shows in Northern Ireland and were amazed at the award-winning blooms on display, enormous harvest vegetables and many other wonders from community gardens, local allotments, greenhouses and beehives in the city. Visitors enjoyed browsing the variety of stalls around the park selling hot food, sweet treats, homemade produce and preserves, plants, homemade crafts and more.

Some fantastic local musicians and singers performined over the weekend with a mix of contemporary and old-time favourites to get your toes tapping and the Grand Finale Band Concert took place on the Sunday (2pm-5pm) – which marked the end of our popular Music in the Parks programme.

New to this year’s event is the Autumn Fair Trail. Visitors had fun learning a little more about Botanic Gardens and discovered new areas off the beaten track, solved the clues and met some interesting characters along the way.

Younger visitors were spoilt for choice with all the fun of the fair from carnival games, safari train rides, workshops, mini explorer’s sensory play and crazy golf to amazing magic shows, captivating street performers and autumn arts and crafts.

The grown-ups had a go at our crafty workshops and created one of our most famous plants, the Victoria amazonica – better known as the water lily, complete with a cheeky rainforest frog. Songwriting the Ravine, an expressive sound installation that explored local connections and experiences of Belfast’s rich musical heritage, was  played on the hour every hour between 10am and 5pm each day as part of Belfast Music Summer Seasons 2018.

A selection of recycled sculptures were also on display throughout the park made from waste items representing the problems that waste can present in our environment. From an excavated waste dinosaur to a fish choked by plastic bottles, the sculptures demonstrate our responsibility to dispose of our waste properly.