Aberdeen Festivals, the group set up to promote festivals, develop audiences and strengthen the cultural sector in the Aberdeen and the North-east is opening to new members for the first time ever.
Following a successful pilot period, the festivals group is putting out a call to festivals in the region to apply to be part of the collective for 2016.
Aberdeen Festivals currently comprises nine festivals including, Arts Across Learning Festival, Aberdeen Jazz Festival, May Festival, Aberdeen International Youth Festival(AIYF), Fifty Plus Family Festival, TechFest, North–East Open Studios (NEOS), DanceLive and Sound.
Joint audience numbers across the current nine member festivals is more than 177,000 per year and the festivals represent many art-forms including jazz, new music, dance, youth arts and science. Together the festivals present hundreds of free events, shows for ages from pre-school to the over 65’s and world premieres annually from February to November each year.
The initiative has proven so successful that future funding from Aberdeen City Council and VisitAberdeen has been secured into 2016 and now new festivals are being urged to apply to be a part of the group.
The next festival in the group to take place is DanceLive, Scotland’s leading contemporary dance festival, which runs from October 9 to 20.
Currently the organisation sits within VisitAberdeen, and was set up to provide additional profile for the festivals, develop new audiences and strengthen the festivals and cultural sector in Aberdeen through its collaborative working model.
Festival members of the group have reported uplift in audience numbers and increased profile locally and nationally as a result of the joint promotional and advocacy work of the group.
The deadline for applications to be made by festivals is Friday, October 23.
To date the group has secured private sponsorship from Statoil UK, a major funding boost from Visit Scotland to carry out a national and international marketing campaign aimed at driving cultural tourism to Aberdeen and been shortlisted for a number of local and national business and arts awards.
Steve Harris, Chief Executive of VisitAberdeen and Chair of Aberdeen Festivals said:
‘It’s been very exciting to watch this pilot grow and evolve into one of the region’s most active and high profile collaborations. It’s a credit to the festivals that they have been able to dedicate time, energy and resources to make this initiative work and I’m delighted that other festivals can now apply to join and can reap the rewards of partnering with some of the area’s top festivals.’
The application form, criteria to join and fee structure is available on the Aberdeen Festivals website http://aberdeenfestivals.com/apply-to-join/
The group is open to applications from festivals where a majority of the festival takes place in Aberdeen and that ideally run for three or more days.