Harlow Town use to have a Harlow Town Show, many, many years back. Recently, as a part of their new developments within Harlow, they’ve been hosting more events. We’ve seen the Christmas Market, the Graffiti Festival, Lions on the Loose, and now the Harlow Town Show. This event specifically was meant for only people who live in Harlow (they had this whole ticket verification processes and everything), as it was put on for the people of Harlow.
Harlow Town Show Ticket Situation
The event had different stands and shows on each day, for three days. We went on the Sunday, going to both the daytime show and the night show. (Friday and Saturday also had a night show. Both night shows were ticketed separately to the daytime shows.) The tickets for the Harlow Town Show were very confusing generally, with Friday and Saturday evenings being labelled as 18+ only, but also Sunday evening shows saying the same in their emails – and there was this whole thing where they’d call and “check” if you were living in Harlow if you got a ticket – but obviously some people just lied and brought their out of town family members anyway. It’s all a bit of a strange thing!
Harlow Town Show Daytime Event
The Harlow Town Show on the day was split into a bunch of different areas. There was a lovely community tent, which had a lot of the local community events! We saw Robin’s old Gymnastics club, the Essex Bat Group, and a bunch of other familiar faces. There were rides in the funfair section, with a rock climbing wall, Ferris wheel, tea cups and a giant slide. Food was split into two areas with one being near the fun fair and another, which was primarily bakeries (which sold the same stuffed cookies?!) on the Sunday, over by the regular stalls. We got some fantastic tacos and Kai got a burger he very much enjoyed. There wasn’t a lot of things to purchase, per say, but it was neat to see the tents. Another outdoor area had Harlow places, like the Leisure Zone, scouts and the like.
This was by the Big Top tent, which had performances during the day. We hopped in and listened to some of the music being played – the dancers were great and the lighting was fantastic. An outdoor stage had animals like horses being shown off along with a bird of prey hour, which was a neat line up. The line up did double itself, with each act preforming twice on the outdoor stage. There were also horses and sheep, very country feeling. We didn’t spend a full day there, but it’s a good showing for their first time.
Harlow Town Show at Night
Now, the Harlow Town Show at night had some of the same teething pains that we saw in the tickets; some people were rejected at the door for having their own food or chairs, others were let in, some people were let in without tickets by having the daytime ticket – which was truly confusing! It really depend on who you walked up to. There was a smaller food area at night, we got some pizza, and settled in for the night. On Sunday, they had two big Broadway tributes, with a couple of singers in-between.
The new bandstand in Harlow is really great. I love the screens so that everyone can see and the sound stage was great! Lighting was also fantastic, even as the night went on. I ended up taking a bunch of really fun photos, chatting with lots of locals, and the vibes were great. Everyone was just cheerful and having a lot of fun together. It was a truly fantastic experience and I do hope that they fix a lot of these growing pains next year!
You can check out our other Days Out to see what else we’ve been up too!