Fine weather on the final day looks to have helped Dundee Flower and Food Festival to post strong visitor numbers this year.
Overall attendance across the three days of the event at Camperdown Park was said to be 21,000 not quite enough to beat the record of 25,000.
“It’s pretty good because the weather wasn’t great for the first day,” said a festival spokesman.
As families wandered around the exhibits basking in glorious sunshine, festival manager Merrill Smith said Sunday was likely to be the busiest day in the event’s history.
“It’s going very, very well. It’s been very successful,” she said. “Gino D’Acampo has been very popular and Monty Don was here all day on Saturday.”
Unfortunately, the TV gardener had to pull out of the event on Sunday “for unforeseen reasons,” but Bill Torrance from the Beechgrove Garden proved a popular replacement.
There was also a significant rise in children’s exhibits, from 800 two years ago to just under 2,250 this year.
“We are now working very closely with schools under the Curriculum for Excellence,” said Merrill. “Whole classes have been coming in, which is great.”
One of the Sunday highlights was a “flashmob” style dance-along.
An enthusiastic team from Smallpetitklein Dance Company performed to a variety of songs, joined by members of the public.
Artistic director Thomas Small said: “We do a lot of community work so we brought together all our groups to work on it. The dancers all had to go out and grab as many people as they could and more joined in than we thought.”
The popularity of the festival again led to long queues on roads leading to Camperdown Park, with broken down vehicles adding to the delays.
Council leisure, arts and communities convener Bob Duncan felt the festival was worth the wait.
“There was about a 10-minute delay getting in but the police had no concerns about the traffic,” he said. “I don’t think I have ever seen so many people in one place. If the weather is good we have a great year and if it’s bad we don’t.
“The future of the show is brought up every year but I always explain that we look at it on balance over three or four years so the good years can even out the bad, though we shouldn’t be losing any money this year.”