THE organisers of the popular Irish Game Fair and Fine Food Festival planned for Shanes Castle, Antrim from July 31st - August 1st 2021 have reluctantly declared that the Fair will be postponed until 2022.

Director Albert Titterington, a veteran of 68 fairs over 41 years, stated: “We had no realistic option other than to reluctantly postpone the Shanes Castle this year, given the increasing uncertainty regarding any easing of Covid restrictions/regulations going forward in Northern Ireland. Factoring in the additional potential new risk from the Delta variant, we had no option than to reluctantly decide to postpone the Game Fair until June 25-26th, 2022.

“An event of our size meant that we would see huge numbers of exhibitors, visitors and competitors due to come from all over the UK and Ireland. And despite our proud history of award-winning public events professionally organised over 40 years, we felt that current climate of uncertainty was not conducive to delivering a safe event to our normal high standard for the thousands wishing to attend,” he said.

Never one to be beaten entirely on delivering game fair festivals for many thousands of eager members of the public, Titterington had this to say: “Between now and 2022 we will be implementing our ‘Plan B’ which we had been working on daily in order to to build even more on the success of The Virtual Game Fair www.thevirtualgamefair.com. Impressively for a relatively new internet start up, there have been upwards of 203,000 visitors since its launch in August last year.

“I can state categorically that public participation online from all over Ireland, Britain and indeed worldwide – plus another major initiative currently under wraps will continue to focus firmly on Antrim and its environs,” he added.