Issue - items at meetings - Children's Festival - presentation by Lucy Jefferies

Verbal update.

The committee heard a presentation from Lucy Jefferies, Arts Development Officer, on the Children’s Festival 2010. This was run by the Arts Commission and formed part of the national project which had led to the Liverpool as a City of Culture. It was now held bi-annually to provide enough time to plan suitable events, but had been lengthened from 4 to 7 days. They did a lot of targeted work between the festivals to build up the audience, for example a project for Looked After Children who were given 2 free tickets for themselves and a friend/carer.

An aim of the festival was to encourage people who were less likely to participate in the existing cultural provision of the city.  A key group they were targeting was 0-5 years olds, with events such singing and making masks.

The theme for the festival was transformation, to change yourself, your environment and each other. It would include 90 events including:

·        In the Frame: where children would appear for five minutes to do whatever they wanted. For example a 5 year old was performing a dance piece on Indiana Jones

·        Devil’s Sunrise: where families were transported to Devil’s Dyke at 5am to hear a story teller

·        Café Noir: at the Komedia - for children to experience eating food and hearing comedy and music in the dark

·        An interactive performance of Alice in Wonderland

These events had been heavily promoted and had a good take-up in areas such as Whitehawk.  Other targeted work included going into 5 schools who would lead the Big Sing and the mini-mile which was being run by Active for Life in the last mile of the Marathon. There had been a volunteer programme, which had been able to find 15 very experienced ‘super volunteers’ who could oversee 60 volunteers.  The festival had been featured in the Guardian’s ‘top 10 things to do with your child at Easter‘.

The first UK children’s festival network meeting was being held the following week to bring together the organisers of these events. It was being funded by SEEDA and the Arts Council and would have delegates from 15 festivals, including Sheffield who had 20 years of experience of running their event.

The funding for the festival would come to an end this year and so the possibility of INTERREG funding was being explored. The Committee thanked Ms Jefferies and expressed its appreciation of the range of events being held. They wished her luck in her secondment to the South Bank Centre.

They agreed that the festival made a vital contribution to the city’s good reputation for culture.