Shopping and entertainment on offer at summer festival in Kirkcaldy

Traders from the Merchants' Quarter in Kirkcaldy have come together to organise this Saturday's Summer Festival. From left: John Tallack, Gail Cadogan, Rose Bentley-Steed and Helen McBride. Pic credit: WALTER NEILSON.

Saturday’s fun day has been organised by traders in the east end of the High Street – and it follows on from a successful festive shopping event held by the business owners in December.

The festival runs from 10am to 4pm, and has been organised by Gail Cadogan, owner of My Cherry Pie and Dean Penman, owner of Merchants Quarter Coffee Shop, along with some of the other traders.

And it has been organised to co-incide with Fife Pride in a bid to tap into the large numbers expected to descend on our town centre.

Poster promoting the summer festival in Merchants' Quarter in Kirkcaldy this Saturday.

The traders have been working closely with representatives from Fife Pride to help organise the festival.

And it offers something for everyone.

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Gail said: “We will be having a free prize raffle that people can enter by ‘colouring in’ all the colours of the rainbow - with shops in the area selected to represent one colour.

“There have been prizes donated from each store including gift vouchers and t-shirts and people can pick up raffle cards from the shops in the Merchants’ Quarter.

“The raffle will be drawn at Merchants’ Quarter Coffee Shop in the afternoon.”

There is also music to add to the atmosphere. courtesy of local business, KCCVinyl.

Helen McBride, manager at the music shop, said: “The acts will include local singing group The Songburds who will perform at 11.00am, and Resonate, a drumming group based in Kirkcaldy, will play at noon.

“There will also be a couple of acoustic singers - one of them will be Sandy Power who is a singer with Fife indie rock band Cornfield Chase.”

The east end – which has become home to man y thriving indepdendent traders – hopes the festival will showcase what the area has to offer.

Rose Bentley-Steed, who owns florist shop The Flower Ranger, said: “The town is going to be buzzing anyway because people will be comingto Kirkcaldy for Fife Pride so we thought it was a fantastic opportunity to encourage them to head along to the east end of the High Street.

“The Christmas shopping event we had was a big success. Every shop here was busy so we are hoping for the same this weekend.”

The day has the backing of Kirkcaldy4All.

Bill Harvey, BID manager, said: “The Merchants’ Quarter Summer Festival is a great initiative led by our smaller independent businesses.

“And it ties in brilliantly with Fife Pride which we are pleased to see bringing colour and vibrancy once again to the town centre.

“I hope people will come into town on Saturday and show their support for these two fantastic initiatives.”

David Torrance, Kirkcaldy MSP, said: “Anything that promotes the High Street is to be warmly welcomed.

“There are still a variety of shops, particularly many small independent businesses. This event is helping to promote them and is encouraging people to shop locally. I would urge people to come down on Saturday to see the wide range of products for sale as well as enjoying the entertainment on the day.”