Imagine festival of the arts 2015Report

In summary IMAGINE 2015 consisted of 59 events and workshops across Sutton, all with the aim of encouraging arts in our community. This report will outline the programme, partners, feedback from the organisers and the audience and will conclude with recommendations for IMAGINE 2016.

Festival programme The purpose of this year’s festival was to makes arts accessible to everyone, bringing a wide variety of quality arts events and projects into libraries, which are a beacon for the community. From 16th-31st October 2015, the London Borough of Sutton delivered 24 events across 8 of the 9 libraries and Beddington Park, in addition to a further 35 workshops from June to October, which included dance, live literature, puppetry, crafts, music and painting for all ages and abilities.

It was the first time that the festival had brought in match funding from Arts Council England, in addition to sponsorship from Successful Sutton and Arts Network Sutton. This enabled the festival to remain entirely free to the public and offer quality arts experiences, with a mixture of small and large events.

We wanted this festival to connect the arts, libraries and heritage in a way that would bring a new perspective to the service for the staff and public, whilst maximising the resources available. As a member of the public summarised for the Big Reveal, it was a “wonderful event - the banners, the singing, the painting and the collaboration of art, heritage and culture”.

We wanted the festival to fulfill our council-led community wellbeing aims of increasing confidence, encouraging social engagement, getting people active, reducing isolation and promoting intergenerational activities. The festival managed to do all of this and much more.

A good example of this was the creative workshops at Rylands and Abbeyfield care homes in Wallington, run by Robin Vaughan-Williams, a local poet. He creatively captured the stories of many of the residents, which were then worked on by young people and adults to be performed on the main stage of the Central library and Skyped back to the homes.

It was a truly intergenerational event that gave the elderly a sense of connection to the community and emotionally moved many of the public. Comments included: “felt it was a great performance from the children and lovely to hear the old people reading their own words”, “Really good! Inspiring! Great to see the community together for something different and creative”.

Dance was a key theme for the festival and a key way to get people active through the arts. With our dance events we reached people aged 4 to 75 with a contemporary piece linked to the history of Croydon airport and a ‘50s themed event with ‘50s dance, decorations and music, again connecting arts, libraries and heritage.

Craft and visual arts were very popular, from the Big Draw event run by Wallington Girls School, which over 100 people attended, to Mapping Sutton by Amanda Randell and painting workshops with ARt workshops. Many quoted the craft events as being “relaxing” and “therapeutic”.

One of the workshop hosts said, “A mum of a young boy turned up at the Sutton Life Centre after having taken part in my morning workshop at the Central library... She explained that he is normally very restless and hard to motivate but that during my session he was unprecedentedly calm and focused. When I left the library she was arranging for her son to attend the next art activity there”.

We aimed to engage 1,500 members of the public, as a combined total of audience and participants. The festival managed to go far beyond this with the final figure at just over 2,270 audience members and 550 participants giving a total of 2,820.

Ninety percent of the events were fully booked or over subscribed. However, as the events were free, occasionally up to a third did not show, so we added a waiting list and suggested those people take the risk and attend on the day to fill the gaps. This meant most of the events were at maximum capacity.

This total number was less than last year. However, in 2014, over 2000 people came for one large high street event which we did not have this year, as we were concerned about the weather. This programme was also more focused on a long lasting and quality experience that was unique and impactful for all who took part. This is a huge improvement on the visitor figures of just over 1000 from pre-2014 Imagine festivals and far greater than our baseline figure.

With the help of volunteers, we have also gathered extensive evaluation from over 500 people, which helps to give us a very clear picture on who is engaging with the festival and their experiences.

Audience feedback

Do you regularly use libraries in Sutton?

Have you previously attended a council supported arts event?

The results show that most were regular library users and experiencing LBS supported arts events for the first time.

NO 69%

NO 35%

YES 65% YES 31%

Do you regularly use libraries in Sutton?

Which libraries do people use most?

Sutton Central

34% Wallington

24% Westcroft

18% Worcester Park

11%

Sutton Life Centre, Cheam and Circle 4%

Where is the audiencecoming from?

What age?

0

20

40

60

80

100

SM6 21%

SM5 19%SM1 14%

SM2 8 %Croydon 8%

In 2014, we discovered that those aged 75+ and 17-25 years old were not as engaged in the festival, but we were reaching families. To address this, we offered more intergenerational events such as ‘Tea and Cake with John Hegley’ and ‘Flight of Dance’.

Under 16 37 %45-65 19% 36-44 17%26-35 9%75 + 866-74 6% 17-25 4%

Compared to 2014, we have a slight increase in engaging those over 75 and aged between 26-44.

The festival still has a large family focus with a majority of the audeince aged under 16 and their parents.

Marketing How did you hear about the event?

Brochure 18%

Word of mouth 40%

Other 20%

Library 11%

Figures for how people heard about events are fairly similar to 2014. However, there is little mention of newspapers, despite having a full page ad and distributing the brochures with the Sutton Guardian. Attendance for all events was much higher this year. We started promotion earlier (from late August), using eventbrite to help track progress on bookings and working more with the community partners and friends groups all helped raise attendance figures.

Marketing was a concern for the artists who took part in Imagine 2014. With more time and budget spent on marketing this year, we managed to fill events and satisfy those leading the projects. As a result, the average score for marketing from the artists was 4.3 out of 5.

Online 11%

Volunteering We had volunteers aged 15 to 65+ who helped with the event management and marketing. By working with schools, we were able to give new skills to young volunteers. As Beth said, “It taught me many skills which may be helpful in the future in work, such as writing and using different online tools”. Equally, it was important to inspire a sense of belonging for the volunteers. As Anne commented, “It was good to feel part of a group doing something worthwhile for the community”. All of the volunteers said the experience exceeded expectations.

I think we should do more of these. Lovely, the guys really enjoyed themselves expressing their feelings through arts and learning some great artistic skills.

Exhilarating. It was very fun and very different from anything I have ever done before.

My Kids got creative and calm. They really enjoyed it and so did I. Very theraputic. Once in a lifetime trip. Delightful, humorous, thoughtful, nostalgic and gentle.

Makes me want to write poetry. Fun, stimulating, moving - brilliant to have so many groups in the community brought together in one event. Something different for the kids to see and experience.

It was good to see young people showcasing their talent. It’s amazing, my son enjoyed every minute. We as a family really enjoyed the painting which involved all ages, would like to see more events like this. Feeling proud of Croydon Airport history

Inspired, rejuvenated, empowered and overall awe! Lovely to see a combination of music and storytelling together. Visual and aural aspects refreshing in this age of technology.

Brilliantly organised and aimed perfectly at the audience.

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Comments

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Organisers Feedback: What were the benefits of using a library? Being in the heart of the community. Judy Okeke, Sutton Age Uk

The results speak for themselves - a celebration of the local area, past and present. - Ms Kathleen Shawcross, Borough Archivist & Local Studies Manager

New families joined the library whose children had taken part in the event. - Circle Library

Everyone Active were delighted to be involved such an event, which pulled the community together to celebrate local history and produced a fantastic dance. - Paul Lambert, General Manager, Phoenix Centre, Everyone Active

It was wonderful to be able to offer such a wide variety of cultural activity within the borough’s libraries. It helped to bring in new audiences and challenge perceptions of what libraries can be about. It was also good to be able to build connections with local artists and performers, so that we can increase the types of activities and events we can offer to our local communities in the future. - Rachel Levy, Development Manager, Libraries & Heritage Service.

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Exceeded expectations 75%

• Look at more flexible closing times for evening workshops based in the library buildings• Programme the festival for the 15th - 31st October 2016 to cover two weekends and half term again• Outdoor events should be avoided for this time of year • State ages 0-10 and 10-16 on feedback forms to better gauge the audiences engaging with the festival • Improve the wifi connection• Recruit volunteers earlier, at the end of August or start of September • Charge a nominal fee of between £1- £5 for key events, or ask for a deposit between £1- £5 and refund the price of the ticket using eventbrite • Continue to use eventbrite for bookings• Promote festival events in more printed magasines and newspapers • Invest in a better PA for the libraries

I used Local Studies in planning workshops, which provided lots of useful material (+ helpful staff). We worked with mobile library users, who were very enthusiastic about the service. I think being associated with the library gave us some credibility. We were able to use some other resources from the library too. The library was also the venue for some workshops and our final event—good to be in a recognisable location with links in the community, and get support from several staff members and affiliated institutions. - Robin Vaughan-Williams, Tea and Cake with John Hegley

Library users offered a different kind of audience that might not expect to see dance. - Henrietta Hale, Dog Kennel Hill Project Dance Company

Exploring new performance environments. Tapping into new audiences. Enhancing and galvanising creative talents of library staff and volunteers.- Sheree Vickers, Savvy Theatre

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Reccomendations for 2016

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Icon Credit Yaroslav Samoilov, Marie Van den Broeck and Maria Maldonado

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