Confetti battleWednesday 29th August : 8.00pm
A crowd gathers in the Market Place from around half past seven and at eight o'clock precisely there is a bang. Confetti cannons shoot confetti into the air and there is a rush to buy bags of confetti! What is afoot...
There is no 'battle' as such, just a very silly half hour during which a lot of fun is had and a lot of confetti is thrown about. Expect to get 'attacked' by complete strangers throwing paper! As the confetti runs out and dusk falls a firework display rounds off the evening. There's also a Jennings fairground in the Market Place.
A unique tradition
As far as we know Devizes is the only town that has a confetti battle tradition. Confetti throwing was apparently a popular thing to do in early carnivals in England. Devizes Carnival started doing it in 1913 but then confetti and rose petals were thrown by the crowd at people in the procession. We are not sure how the tradition in Devizes developed into the battle that we have today.
