LAUNCESTON was said to be the busiest it has been in more than 30 years when Heart FM brought its Christmas fayre to the town hall on Saturday.

People queued for up to 90 minutes to go into the fayre, hosted by Heart FM presenters Matt Rogers and Victoria Leigh. There were even very special visitors — Father Christmas and Mrs Claus.

The town square also felt very festive, where Heart FM presenter James Dundon had his fairground organ on display.

Mayor Margaret Young said: “It was such an incredible weekend in the town and it was wonderful to welcome so many new visitors to Launceston. The town was buzzing!”

Richard Spencer, managing editor for Heart South West, said the event couldn’t have happened without the generosity of those who donated their time, products and companies.

The idea came about around six weeks ago, as Richard explained: “Matt and Victoria were talking on air about the huge percentage of people who have what’s known as a ‘side hustle’ — they have a normal day job but in their spare time they make things that they sell on Etsy or eBay. They suddenly had this idea — wouldn’t it be great to get all these people to sell their stuff. Let’s put on a Christmas market.

“It just sort of snowballed! We thought Plymouth, Exeter, Truro have their own Christmas markets anyway; let’s go somewhere where this could be really cute and really special. That morning we got an email from Anna Mitchell, a town councillor, offering us the town hall. We just went ‘that’s perfect’ — in our heads that’s what we imagined. We were inundated with stallholders and we handpicked 30. It’s been quite an intense six weeks putting it together.”

The event exceeded all the Heart’s team’s expectations. Asked if he expected the huge turnout they had, Richard said: “No, is the short answer! I genuinely thought if we get 1,000 people attend that would be a success.”

It is thought between 6,000 and 7,000 attended.

“Another town councillor, Val [Bugden-Cawsey] was telling me it’s the busiest she’s seen Launceston in 30 years. It exceeded all our expectations. Everyone seemed really happy.”

Buzzlewick’s elf emporium and polar post office kept youngsters busy, and among the stalls was a cheesecake stall that sold out within two hours. There was entertainment from Launceston Town Band, Plymouth Rock Choir and Pool Academy.

Matt and Victoria said:?“We knew it had to be Launceston, it was top of our wish list. We wanted it to look like a Christmas movie and that’s exactly what we got. We are still so overwhelmed by the amount of people that came along — it was beyond our wildest dreams. Can we come back next year please?”