Founder of Battle of Evesham festival 'humbled' by national award nomination
Mick Hurst has been shortlisted for the Visit England's 2026 Tourism Superstar title
The organiser of an event honouring an historic 13th century Worcestershire conflict has said he was "taken aback" when he was told his name had been put forward for a national award.
Founder of the Battle of Evesham re-enactment festival Mick Hurst has made the final shortlist of 10 for Visit England's 2026 Tourism Superstar title.
Mr Hurst has held the festival annually for several years after deciding in 2018 to tell the story of what he labelled as a 'integral part' of history in England, and said it meant a lot to him to get the nomination.
"When Visit Worcestershire called me to say that they decided to nominate me for the award, I was a bit sort of taken aback, humbled obviously," he said.
"I was appreciative of the fact that they'd recognised the effect that the Battle of Evesham is having on the local area really, a massive uplift for the economy and giving the place a sense of pride and a sense of brand."
The festival is dedicated to the battle, which happened in the area on the 4 August 1265 and celebrated its 750th anniversary last year with a three-day event.
It takes place annually now on the first weekend in August, and is scheduled for two days later this year.
On seeing how much it had grown from the start, Hurst said: "In that first year we attracted 125 re-enactors and 10,000 visitors and thought we must have hit on something that was quite attractive to history tourism.
"Last year we attracted 60,000 people and over 800 re-enactors coming up from all over Europe and the momentum behind this is just phenomenal.
"We've now got 80 volunteers who lend their time to actually make these ideas work and I've got a committee of 15 who put their time and effort in all year round planning and marketing and promoting this so it's a really good community effort."
The winner is to be announced after English Tourism Week on the 13-22 March.