Visitors flock to 'Glastonbury with Motorbikes'

"We're really grateful to the County Council for their support...the event was a massive success and now we have that captured perfectly in a fantastic showreel filmed with the equipment we brought with the grant."

A major tourism event which attracted thousands of visitors to Warwickshire last month is set for growth, as is the business that organised it, following support from Warwickshire County Council.

The Adventure Bike Rider Festival 2022 brought 10,000 bike enthusiasts from all over the world to Ragley Hall, near Alcester.

It was the third time the festival, which has been hailed as "Glastonbury with motorbikes and posh toilets" has been held at Ragley by Stratford-upon-Avon-based Adventurize.

Such was its success that bookings for next year's event are already flying, helped by a polished showreel compiled with state-of-the-art equipment bought with a County Council grant.

A £13,000 Adapt & Diversify Fund grant enabled Adventurize to purchase equipment to film the flagship event. The funding will have lasting benefits for the business as it also means they can continue to produce high quality media for their membership platform and process online subscriptions.The equipment is now in regular use to film content for their growing online magazine subscription

"We're really grateful to the County Council for their support," said Adventurize director Alun Davies. "The event was a massive success and now we have that captured perfectly in a fantastic showreel filmed with the equipment we brought with the grant.

"We had 10,000 visitors from all over the world, including Australia, Canada and a lot from Europe. The feedback was so phenomenal we have already put tickets on sale for next year... and sold half of them!

"We have applied for a licence to host 15,000 and ultimately aim to host 20,000. Ragley Hall is such a wonderful venue and they are great people to deal with. The event really couldn't have gone any better and, thanks to the council, we have a brilliant showreel  which will attract more visitors to the county next year.

The two rounds of the Adapt & Diversify grant scheme awarded more than £1.5million to businesses in the retail, hospitality, tourism and leisure sectors as part of the County Council's package of support as Covid restrictions eased.

"The Adventure Bike Rider Festival was a fantastic event," said Louisa Smith, Contract and Project Monitoring Officer for Warwickshire County Council. "The Festival brought thousands of visitors to Warwickshire which was great for the local economy.

"The success of the event in such a wonderful setting means that many of those visitors can't wait to return to our lovely county and I'm delighted that the Adapt & Diversify grant has enabled to maximise benefit for Adventurize which hosted the event so well."