Evaluation of the fourth
Welborne Arts Festival
12 and 13 June 2004
The 2004 Welborne Arts Festival was the best so far!
The total number of visitors to all the events was over 700 (70 at the opening event, 240 on Saturday 12 June, 260 on Sunday 13 June and around 130 in total at the 2 concerts). This is nearly double our highest attendance in previous years and reflects the wider scope of the festival and the number of events.
Over 60 villagers contributed to the festival in some way; more than ever before. This is particularly encouraging as it suggests we are achieving our underlying objective of community-building.
The Arts Festival made a significant surplus from advertising in the programme, sale of the programme, commission on sales of art, catering, sales of concert tickets. Hopefully, a surplus will become the norm, but is dependent on the major costs being met by external funding.The surplus has been split as follows: £500 to Welborne Village Hall, a welcome £500 contribution to the Church and £1000 which has been put into a reserve fund to give us some flexibility in funding future Welborne Arts Festivals.
Our original proposals were for several separate elements:
· "Be creative" - schools workshops and linked activities
· "Listen hear" - concerts in the church
· "Something for all the senses" - in the church
· "Just do it" - workshops and presentations for families
· "Come and see" - community development activitiesWe delivered all of these and a few extras, such as the appearance of the Bristol Art Library, well within budget.
Our proposal document for Welborne Arts Festival 2004 (copy is available from mikewelborne@tiscali.co.uk) stated our objectives, the planned activities, the target audiences, the outcomes, the budget and the funding for each of the planned elements of the festival.
All the planned activities took place (and more) and we believe we met our target audiences. Detailed feedback based on the questionnaire analysed by the SOUL project researchers is also available.The summary below is, therefore, limited to any objectives, planned activities, target audiences and outcomes which were not met:
"Be creative" - sponsored workshops did not take place at Yaxham school, only at Mattishall and Barnham Broom schools. A workshop did not take place at the Old Rectory because it was forced to close before the festival (the same point applies to any other reference to the Old Rectory in the original proposals). Instead, a workshop took place at Mattishall Day Centre. All other objectives and outcomes met.
"Listen hear" - we did not sell as many tickets for the concerts as we had hoped, but more than covered our costs.
"Something for all the senses" - this was particularly successful. No other comments.
"Just do it" - these were very successful for children; less so for adults. We did not have as many workshops for adults as we had hoped for.
"Come and see" - the exhibition of work by villagers was the highlight for many, which is clearly very encouraging for the future. We had hoped to host exhibitions by two artists' groups and an individual renowned artist; in the event, only Creative Arts East and Breckland Artists, exhibited. See "lessons learnt" below.
We were successful in obtaining about £6,308 funding. The most significant funders were the Paul Hamlyn Foundation (the first time we were supported by a national charity) and South Norfolk Council (this was the second of two year's development support). Funding also came from Norfolk County Council and Sainsburys.
We also received a £2,700 grant from the Awards for All lottery fund which we agreed to repay because the Paul Hamlyn Foundation had already agreed to fund the same elements of the festival.
Other local businesses contributed in a smaller way by paying for advertising in our first festival programme or in kind (e.g. screens loaned by Builders Equipment).As the festival has expanded, so has the organising committee, which this year included Anna English, Bill English, Fred Elson, Anton Lukoszevieze, Tracy Shalom, Mike Webb. Each member of the committee put a great deal of time, effort, enthusiasm and commitment into the festival, which would not happen without them.
This year we employed two outside professionals who made a significant contribution:
Andy Croft - designer of the flyers, posters and the programme
Paul Dickson - promotion servicesBehind the scenes, we had a great deal of advice and support from:
Meryl Harding - South Norfolk Council
Alistair Winch - Creative Arts East
Mary Muir - Norfolk County Council
A very helpful survey of visitors to the Arts Festival was carried out and analysed by Brian Butcher and Lee Marsden, researchers from Norwich City College working with Welborne Village Hall on the SOUL project.Lessons learnt
We have identified a very wide range of things that went well, some things that didn't and some lessons for the future. The main points are summarised below.
· Sales of advertising in the programme
· The sponsored workshops in the schools and the day centre
· The opening event which was a 'thank you' to funders, advertisers, sponsors and all villagers helping put on the festival
· The visual art and sound commissions were brilliant
· Villagers and schools exhibitions looked good and the layout worked well
· The Bristol Art Library was very successful and fun, but baffled some people!
· Good to have several things going on at once
· The concerts were very successful but we must sell more tickets - may need advertising separately from the festival itself.· There was a lot of work from the workshops in the schools and we did not have enough space to display all of it
· Although both headteachers came to the festival, we do not seem to have made a real connection between the schools and the festival.
· Sales of the programme
· Nearly £100 of unexpected VAT that we had to pay
· Being made aware of possible need, as promoter, for a Performing Rights Society licence - or the need to require performers to have?· Need more people on organising committee to build sustainability for the future and share workload
· Need to break down activities of the Festival into more, smaller, elements so that we can share the workload
· Must co-ordinate distribution of invitations to the opening 'do' and encourage more villagers to come to it, as a village celebration
· More signing to the festival and clearer signs on the site
· Need a central 'point' during the festival to say what is going on and where (and possibly a public address system)
· More help with catering at peak times
· Consider higher prices for catering?
· Need more visual art activities - and someone to organise them
· Would work better if we had a 'theme'
· Perhaps the theme of the festival needs to meet National Curriculum targets?
· Need pro-active 'welcomers' to the festival and 'curators' of exhibitions should greet and interact with visitors
· Separate children's and other activities so that enthusiasm and noise does not interfere
· More careful timetabling to avoid almost impossible overload on organisers (e.g. cannot cope with concerts, taking down exhibition straight after full days of festival
· Now we know the quality and quantity of art that we can expect from villagers, we should have separate exhibitions for villagers and children
· We should not further extend the number of marquees to avoid the churchyard being overcrowded and too much blank, white marquee fabric.We have established Welborne Arts Festival as a significant annual event in Norfolk.
The 2004 festival was bigger in scale and wider in scope than in 2003. Our challenge is to learn from what we have achieved, to avoid over-stretching ourselves, to keep it rural and intimate by keeping a limit on its scale.
Planning for 2005 has already begun and the search for funding will begin shortly. Details will be published on the village website www.welborne.org.uk.
11 August 2004Contact festival office on: 01362 850327
Contact Welborne Arts Festival