OKEHAMPTON is planning to come together and celebrate in party style in October with an event combining elements of both the carnival and the food and music festival.

As the town emerges from the current crisis, A Little Light Relief is pencilled in for Saturday, October 17 with a carnival procession for children, fancy dress classes and food stalls and live music in St James Street and the Red Lion Yard.

Christine Marsh, of Everything Okehampton, is organising the event together with Karen Penna from the Okehampton Carnival Committee.

It is being held on the third Saturday in October — which has been Carnival Day in Okehampton for as long as anyone can remember — and will include elements of the food and music festival which could not take place as usual at the end of June due to Covid-19.

‘It is exciting to be working together to do something for the town, something positive and happy,’ said Christine.

‘There’s no evening procession this year, we are just having a daytime thing and to make it more of a day-long event rather than just a couple of hours, we are having stalls and music too.

‘We are calling it A Bit of Light Relief. It will be a party atmosphere in the town, all about getting together to do something positive and something that everybody can look forward to.

‘By that time, hopefully, there will be a bit of a relaxation of the restrictions, hoping that we do not get another spike of the virus.’

Carnival organiser Karen Penna said: ‘Whilst Okehampton Carnival isn’t due to take place until October, there is a lot of preparation work that goes on behind the scenes in the months beforehand and as we do not know at this point in time what government regulations will be in place we have reluctantly had to take the decision to cancel the evening procession.

‘We are, however, holding this joint venture with Everything Okehampton’s Food and Music Festival team.

‘The carnival committee will hopefully be holding a coffee morning in the Charter Hall from 9am until 12 noon and some fancy dress classes and a small parade in the afternoon.’

Fancy dress classes can be found on the entry form available from Donald’s Menswear on Fore Street.

There are also ‘socially distanced’ classes for both children and adults to enter, inviting entries of a decorated paper plate and decorated hat and a decorated shop window class for both shops and town centre business, on any theme.

Entries are having to be restricted to people living in Okehampton and Okehampton Hamlets for logistical reasons, with full details of how to enter the socially -distanced classes on the Okehampton Carnival Facebook page.

Karen added: ‘We feel that some people may still have reservations about large gatherings in October and have therefore arranged some classes that can be done using “social distancing”.’

Among scores of events cancelled in West Devon this summer as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak have been the Okehampton Rotary Club May Fair, the Okehampton Show, ordinarily held on the showground outside the town on the first Thursday in August, and the Chagford Show.

However dates have already been set for next year’s shows and plans are in the pipeline for an event in Okehampton’s Simmons Park later in the year to raise funds for the Christmas lights.