Preparations for "one of the largest exhibitions of wines" are underway by Lagoa council which is hosting the exhibition at the under-used Arade Congress Centre in Parchal this Easter.
"As Lagoa has one of the region’s high quality wine producers, which has won all kinds of regional, national and international awards, Lagoa Council’s mayor, Francisco Martins and his team feel satisfaction and pride in hosting the Lagoa Wine Show," according to the publicity.
The show will run on the 2nd to the 4th of April, and the organisers say that as the exhibition is over Easter, thousands of tourists will be in the Algarve, many of them in the Lagoa area and can enjoy artists including Áurea, Ana Moura, Pedro Abrunhosa and something called DJ Poppy.
The wine show is being organised by the council in partnership with the Algarve Wine Route and is intended to represent a "tribute to farmers, consumers and all of those working in a region with a product that is one of the main reference points of the city."
The exhibition will host regional wine producers along with regional food, wine accessories, debates, lectures and music.
As the council is one of the owners of the Arade Congress Centre it is hoped that the costs can be kept to a minimum as 'Lagoa' and 'event hosting' do not sit well together on any balance sheet.
Lagoa council’s commercial offshoot Fatasul is still grappling with a ratepayer backed accumulated loss of €700,000 for its annual Fatacil show.
In November 2013, Francisco Martins said the organising company Fatasul was to undergo a full audit covering the past three years in an attempt to bring some clarity to the accumulated debt and to look at sensible ways forward.
Lagoa council pushed ahead with the Fatacil fair last summer but has not released audited figures. If the Wine Fair also loses money, the council will have more explaining to do in its annual report.
Comments
As that wine producer from Vale happens to be extremely rich and is all the time chasing after more and more publicity for its wines and as that guy also claims to be an expert in "organising party's" why can the Camara not ask him TO CREATE HIS OWN SHOW (in the Arade) and consequentely to pay for it ! For making it "more attractive, interesting and plausible" of course it should be good that the handful of super excellent new and young Algarvian winemakers should also exhibit their products in that event. This could be a very nice "synergy" between the local Administration and the industry and commerce.
Let's hope this wine show is underwritten by the producers and that the huge, largely empty venue is indeed free of charge.
More losses on bright ideas in Lagoa should not be tolerated and there has been no accounts produced for last summer's Fatacil so we don't know where we are at.
Personally I don't think it is up to the council to run these shows, it should be running the council.