Claire Viola, County Administrator at the Bedfordshire and Luton Pre-school Learning 麻花影视office, spoke to us about her experiences planning the fantastic annual Picnic in the Park event in Luton, and shared her top tips for new event planners on running a successful event.
Tell us about the Picnic in the Park event you organise in Luton every summer
Picnic in the Park has been running for over 16 years, and initially started as a traditional picnic in the park by the member groups of the 
鈥淟uton Branch鈥 of the Pre-school Learning Alliance, who met for a picnic in Wardown Park annually.
But as the years passed, the event got bigger and bigger, and much more popular, so the branch asked the Alliance鈥檚 county office to organise it for them. The event had turned into a community fete-style event, where local childcare settings were invited to hold stalls to raise funds for their setting and to also provide a free activity for the children who attended.
In the later years, we were able to secure sponsorship and organise support from the local authority, which was extremely welcoming, as by then the event was huge!
Local partners and charities were also invited to promote their services in Luton. However by 2015, the 麻花影视became the sole organisers again, as our partners were unable to support us 鈥 we are proud to say it was probably our most successful.
I have organised this event for the last 7 years, I started working for the Pre-school Learning 麻花影视8 years ago, a week before Picnic in the Park 2009, so that year I attended the event with my 4 year old daughter and therefore my first experience of it was as a parent; which gave me a great insight to what I would then take on organising.
Each year we set a theme, and ask our stall holders to support the theme through either their stall or free activity. Previous themes have included Celebrating Fathers, Keep Luton Smiling (highlighting the importance o