What is the future of food festivals? This is the key question to be posted at this year's Abergavenny Food Festival Conference.

Food Festivals have become an established part of the UK's cultural calendar but as the recession tightens its grip on public funds, funders will be asking harder questions. Who comes to your festival? How much do they spend? And will they come back?

Food festivals are largely thought of as win/win; they appeal to a wide variety of people and they fulfil a dual role of place-marketing and economic regeneration.

Nonetheless, a food festival – like any other festival – takes organisation and costs money. Some will be strictly local, volunteer-run affairs, but many others are supported at some level by public funding and that funding is predicated on festivals achieving real, quantifiable results.

This year's keynote speakers, all leading experts in their fields, will focus on the tools that organisers will need to ensure their festival is meeting the needs of increasingly demanding funders as well as stretching their offer for the increasingly demanding visitors.

The programme for the day kicks off with Ellie Kay from VCCP Voice who will be exploring the weird and wonderful world of social media (Facebook / Twitter / Blogs and email) and how it can transform your event or festival with dynamism and persistence. Love it or hate it, the game has changed as to how you promote, educate and communicate and Ellie will show you the latest techniques to stand out in the crowd Philip Lowery, the director of the Real Food Festival, will look at the challenge of delivering larger-scale festivals in urban communities that retain a social purpose. Steering a way between purely commercial "big brand" shows and smaller local events, he has developed the Real Food Festival into one of key events in the UK's food calendar.

After indulging in some speciality chocolate, a couple of innovative and mind-provoking workshops, and a True Taste lunch, Andy Spracklen (Urban8) will explore the mechanisms for building distinct, thriving town centres and communities based around a strong food culture. He looks at ways of communicating and at some of the challenges of using food as a focus for development, drawing on national and international best practice.

To round up the day, the conference will hear from Wynfford James (head of the Food and Market Development Division) on the approach the Welsh Assembly Government is taking to measure the effectiveness of support for Food Festivals and Nick Miller, Director of Miller Research (UK) Ltd. who will be discussing with Wynfford the progress of the evaluation of all 54 food festivals hosted in Wales.

The debate is being held on Friday, September 17 at St Mary's Priory Centre, Abergavenny from 9:30am to 5:00pm. There are a limited number of tickets still available from Claire Harris on 01873 851880 if you hurry!