Balmoral Show 2023: Organisers delighted with event this year with up to 120,000 people visiting

While organisers are still finalising the visitor numbers over the four days, they say it was clearly over 100,000 people - and they don't anticipate that it will be less than last year's 120,000.

Rhonda Geary, Operations Director at the Royal Ulster Agricultural Society said the "Balmoral buzz" was certainly in the air throughout the four days of this year’s show.

"Visitors enjoyed everything from family fun to local produce, alongside exceptional livestock and entertainment."

They are already looking forward to welcoming them back again next year for the 155th show, from 15-18 May, she added.

Meanwhile, the Ulster Farmers Union has reported that not everything at the show this year was good news, with members hearing at the event that further milk price cuts are forecasted.

The UFU said the cuts were announced by some processors with the others expected to follow suit.

UFU deputy president William Irvine said, “The dairy processors were frank about milk price cuts during meetings at the Balmoral Show. The news cast a nervousness among dairy farmers at the show and has plummeted their farm business into a great deal of uncertainty. An extremely difficult few months lie ahead as the income for dairy farming families will take a significant hit affecting the business and the home. Again, it seems to have been forgotten that farmers are dealing with the cost-of-living crisis and food inflation like everyone else.”

On top of this, our dairy farmers have now lost the confidence to invest in their farms, he said, urging banks to engage with processors to understand the situation.

The UFU is encouraging farmers to shop around when buying inputs and focus on margin per cow, he added. “Global markets would indicate that markets are slowly beginning to stabilise and processors are projecting improvement for quarter four of 2023.”