ARTS FESTIVAL New Oxford House, Albert Street, Hebden Bridge HX7 8AH Telephone 01422 842684 email [email protected] www.hebdenbridge.co.uk/festival A Company Limited by Guarantee – Registered in No 3520619 Registered Charity No 1070600

9 May 2008

Dear Councillor

Under your new funding arrangements, the members of the Arts Festival were invited to join the new Grants Working Panel on Tuesday 29th April. We understand our request for financial support for the 2008 Festival will be discussed at full council on Wednesday 21st May. We are sending this letter to help inform that discussion, addressing in writing the issues that were raised by the Grants Panel.

1. How does the Arts Festival benefit Hebden Royd?

We believe Hebden Royd benefits from the Arts Festival on both social and economic levels. The residents of Hebden Royd are given the opportunity to experience the best contemporary exhibitions and performances on their own doorstep. There is a buzz around the area at Festival time and we believe that local people are proud the area hosts such a Festival.

We believe that the Arts Festival is also of economic benefit to the locality. We use local services and suppliers wherever possible and put money back into the local economy by booking accommodation for our artistes and venues for the performances. (Incidentally, the amount we will pay to hire the Picture House this summer is greater than the funding received from Council.) In turn, performers require food and refreshment during their stay and many choose to stay an extra night or two at their own cost to see other Festival events.

The Festival also brings visitors into the town, but we cannot quantify the benefits of this without a sophisticated analysis that is currently way beyond our resources. We know that we need to book hotel and B&B accommodation for our performers well in advance otherwise rooms get booked by our audiences. This year, one landlord was reluctant to accept a booking from the Festival because he didn’t want to have to turn away Festival attendees who would stay for more than one night. We know that pubs, cafes, restaurants and shops get more customers. In recent weeks we have received requests for information about the Festival from people as far afield as Exeter, Nottingham, and Hull.

We sell many tickets to people in Hebden Royd and Calderdale, but also to residents of Bradford, , Manchester, Leeds, and beyond. We know from conversations had with box office volunteers that many visitors plan their holidays to coincide with the Festival. We do not have the resources to present actual statistics, but would welcome suggestions from Councillors about how we can use our database to generate this sort of information in order to support future funding proposals.

Perhaps, more importantly, a lot of people visit the Upper Calder Valley throughout the year because it has a high profile arts festival. Having such a festival says something about the area. It helps to identify it in potential visitors’ minds as a place worth visiting, because a place with a good arts festival is likely to have a lot of other arty and quirky things going on throughout the year. As with the Pace Egg Play, the World Dock Pudding Championship and the recently established Ted Hughes Festival, it is part of what identifies us to the outside world.

2. Why don’t we charge for our programme? One member of the panel suggested that we should generate income by selling our programme instead of distributing it free of charge. The British Association of Arts Festivals could not identify any arts festival which sells its advertising programme. We believe that to try and sell a programme that is inviting people to buy tickets for events would be a self-defeating exercise.

3. Why don’t we charge more for advertising in the programme? The Festival programme is designed to be of a size and weight that can keep printing and postage costs as low as possible. This is why we offer a small ad listing format, rather than a traditional quarter / half page space. We do not believe that local businesses would pay more than we charge for this type of listing. To increase the space available for ads would mean more pages in the programme and higher design, printing and postage costs.

4. Why don’t we try and generate income from our premises? As a charity and voluntary organisation, the Festival benefits from a very reasonable rent set by its landlords. We also qualify for rate relief. We pass on this benefit to the community by offering the exhibition space for use by local artists (often at the beginning of their career) who struggle to find appropriate local venues to show their work. To adopt a commercial approach to the shop/gallery would change our relationship with our landlord resulting in the Festival having to pay a commercial level of rent and business rates and the community would lose a valuable resource. The Festival Shop is also our registered office. We hold meetings there, and store our legal and financial information there.

5. Why don’t we get more sponsorship? We were asked about both local and national sponsors. We have been fortunate in getting sponsorship from Halifax (HBOS plc) in the last two years and this year also secured some funding from Sweet & Maxwell. But it gets more difficult each year, despite our best efforts. It would not be appropriate to list the local small and medium businesses we have approached this year, but national companies we contacted include Suma, Marshalls, Sainsburys, Morrisons, Ladbrokes and the Co-op. We will continue to seek more sponsorship, but as an essentially voluntary organisation we have limited resources at our disposal to do this, and would welcome advice from Councillors as to whom we might approach.

6. Why don’t we use the Hebden Royd grant to fund a fundraising/sponsorship post? This is an idea we could explore further in partnership with the Council. But given that we have always relied on your support to help fund our essential base budget, diverting it to a completely different purpose would leave a huge gap. Unless we could fill that gap from elsewhere, or until a fund-raiser had delivered new funds, the financial viability of the festival would be in serious jeopardy.

7. Who is the Arts Festival aimed at? It’s for everyone. Our aim is always to offer a varied, high quality programme that appeals to a wide range of people, and provides an opportunity for people to experience, often for the first time, performances that they would otherwise have to travel to Leeds or Manchester, or even further, to enjoy. On the back of that programme, each year we build in projects/workshops in conjunction with local schools, that allow young people to work with professionals in a range of fields. These are audiences which cross social class, age, and cultural boundaries.

8. The Festival and This year, we planned our opening performance to take place at the new Ted Hughes Theatre; and at our suggestion, Naomi and Jason are holding Kidsfest in Mytholmroyd. We are hosting two literary lunches at The Dusty Miller and hope to establish this as a venue for similar events at future festivals. While we must remain mindful of selecting appropriate venues for each event, we look forward to working in partnership with Councillors to find ways to develop the festival’s presence in the whole of Hebden Royd.

9. Have we any links with our twin towns? Not at present. However, we would welcome Councillors’ advice as to how this might work to enhance the quality of the Festival and where appropriate, consider performers from our twin towns for future festivals.

10. Volunteers and support in kind Regarding our overall budget, we would like to stress the value in kind that is brought to the Festival through our volunteers and Board members. Our Arts Festival has been punching well above its weight for some years. Those who are experienced in the national arts scene are amazed that we produce a Festival of such quality with only one paid worker (who is paid for one day per week and works well beyond those hours.)

It is equally important not to overlook the skills and commitment within the Board. The Board includes an innovative graphic artist who designs the programme, posters and ads; one of the best web designers in the country; a professional musician whose national and international networks produce a wealth of talent each year; the director of the Arvon Foundation at Lumb Bank, who again is extremely well connected within the world of literature, poetry, and playwriting; a highly talented artist who brings tremendous exhibitions to the valley throughout the year, and has brought the festival three Paula Rego exhibitions (which went on to the Marlborough Gallery New York after our festival); an accomplished publicist who writes clear, punchy articles for the local and national press; a member specifically recruited from Arts & Business to help target new sources of funding; and others with many years senior management experience. If the time that these people give freely to the Festival were costed at realistic commercial rates, it would run into many tens of thousands of pounds each year. These are not just volunteers. This is a dynamic, highly talented group of people who enable a high-quality Festival to be produced at a remarkably low cost.

We would welcome the opportunity to work in partnership with Hebden Royd council to develop the Festival, recognising the financial constraints within which the Council has to work. We need your continued support for without it we would also lose the support of Calderdale MBC, and the Arts Council. But we received mixed messages from the Grants Working Panel – one member suggested that we become more commercial and aim for self-sufficiency within three years, while another suggested that by targeting specific community audiences we could attract therapeutic funding.

We believe that the Festival is an important part of the rich fabric of the Upper Calder Valley. We believe that it adds to the social and economic well-being of the area, not just in terms of the two weeks in July, and the feel good factor it generates, but throughout the year in subtle, difficult to quantify ways. We hope that you agree, and will continue to support us for the benefit of all.

Finally, we are aware that we are one of the first organisations to be assessed under the new grants application process. If the Council, the Grants Working panel or indeed any individual Councillors would like any feedback on our experience of the procedure, then please do not hesitate to ask.

Yours sincerely

Graham Packham Chair, Hebden Bridge Arts Festival