The 19th annual Falmouth Oyster Festival kicks off tomorrow (Thursday) and is expected to attract up to 40,000 visitors over the four days of the action-packed event.

The annual festivities, held primary in a marquee on Events Square, celebrate the start of the oyster dredging season, the native Fal Oyster and the diversity of Cornish seafood. There will be four days of cooking demonstrations, live music and craft stalls with it all getting underway at 10am on Thursday when there will be a talk on oysters ahead of the grand opening at 11am by Cornwall's Michelin starred chef, Chris Eden, of the Driftwood Hotel at Portscatho.

There will be a series of cookery demonstrations across the four days of the festival given by a number of highly respected chefs from many local restaurants and hotels. Friday also sees the return of the Hot Chefs Challenge at 7.30pm when Arty Williams and Nick Hodges battle it out, with money raised going to ShelterBox.

A highlight of Saturday will be the popular oyster shucking competition at 3pm when professionals, and amateurs, square up to see who can open the most oysters in a set time, and Sunday at 11.30am sees the Falmouth Working Boat Race take place in the inner harbour. The prize giving will then take place from 3pm when Falmouth Marine Band will make an appearance.

On Friday afternoon at 3pm the schools' oyster parade will leave The Moor and make its way down through the town centre to Events Square.

The festival is not all about the cooking, however, as events are set to a soundtrack of live music and sea shanties. This year’s entertainment includes a great line up of folk, jazz, blues, soul, rock, funk-pop and shanty.

On Thursday, The Tinners will play their mix of Irish, Scottish and English folk music on fiddles, banjo, whistle, guitar and keyboard. A wealth of tales and yarns to spin, funny man Johnny Cowling returns tomorrow evening from 7pm. Tickets are £5 in aid of Fishermen’s Mission and available from the Maritime Museum and Fal River Cornwall.

On Friday, it’s Russell Sinclair, a singer, guitarist and songwriter from Plymouth, best known for his energetic live guitar performances, and Friday evening will see the return of Falmouth Soul Sensations at 9pm.

Saturday will see performances from Freewheelin’, the Black Rock Jazz Band, Falmouth Shout and Stone Roots while Sunday it will be the turn of singer/songwriter Harry Collier with The Oggymen closing the festival in style from 4pm.

With the exception of an evening with Johnny Cowling, entry to Falmouth Oyster Festival is free. For full details of the programme go to falmouthoysterfestival.co.uk.

For details of the festival programme and further information please visit www.falmouthoysterfestival.co.uk, join us on Facebook ‘Falmouth Oyster Festival’ or follow us on Twitter @FalOysterFest. For full details of events at St Michael’s Hotel & Spa go to www.stmichaelshotel.co.uk