Schoolchildren waving flags and singing will officially open the three-day Porthleven Food Festival this Friday morning.

The event returns for its 11th year this weekend, kicking off on Friday.

After parading down through the port at around 9.30am, Porthleven School pupils will join mayor Andrew Wallis for a look around the festival site at the harbour and The Moors field ready to officially open the event at 10am. 

There will be workshops at various points in the day, with a farmers' market in the Chef's Theatre tent at the shipyard and a Street Food and the South West Market at The Moors, where there will also be mask, hat and costume making for children from 3pm.

Music will be on the Lime Kiln Stage from 1.30pm on that day, and from 10am on the following two days.

This year the festival will trading from 10am to 7pm on all three days, followed by different evening entertainment, with Porthleven Town Band will opening proceedings on Saturday and Sunday.

The Chef's Theatre will run on both weekend days at the Shipyard Stage, as will the Literary and Acoustic Tent and Family Field at The Moors, with circus skills and art workshops for young visitors. There are also a range of workshops for adults, from cocktail making and beer tasting to yoga, which can be booked on the food festival website.

Organisers have teamed up this year with the Porthleven Environment Group, who will be helping with litter-picks across the weekend, as well as encouraging visitors and traders to recycle their rubbish.

Last year the Food Festival started a recycling programme and was able to recycle 53 per cent of its waste, compared to the 32 per cent recycled by the average UK festival. This year the aim is to achieve even higher figures.

The festival will close on Sunday evening with a line up made up entirely of Porthleven bands, including local surf guitar band Ola Loco, punky Half Kut, the emotional pop synths of Rosie Crow and the 80s vibes of Go Go Skank.

Lee Bater of ILOW, the events company that organises the festival on behalf of the committee, said: “The Porthleven community is crucial to the event and this year we’re delighted that the school agreed to get involved and the children are coming down to test some of the circus shows and workshops in the family field.

"The organising team work closely with the local business community to make sure they can get the most out of the festival and for 2019 we also introduced a dedicated community liaison who has been great at meeting with different groups to get them involved.”

The main car park on Friday will be at Porthleven Football Club and roads are open as usual, while on Saturday the main car park is the Methleigh Farm Park & Ride. This costs £5 and includes unlimited use of the shuttle bus in to the festival from the field, which is a ten-minute walk away.

Visitors should follow the signs to reach the festival and should not attempt to approach the festival along the usual B3304 from Helston as road closures will be in place, with Porthleven will be closed to non-residents from 7am to 7pm on Saturday and Sunday.

People should not park on the roads leading into Porthleven as this causes major traffic problems and enforcement will be in operation.

First buses will also run a shuttle bus from the car park opposite Coronation Boating Lake in Helston down to Porthleven Post Office for £2 for adults and £1 for children, running on a loop from 10am to 6.10pm. The timetable can be found on the First Group website's Porthleven Festival 2019 page.

For the first time this year there will be a dedicated cycle park, at the football ground.