The idea
Our Summer Festival 2024 will be inclusive, joyful and unforgettable, providing a space for families to come together and relax, socialise, play, create, dance and party.
Inclusivity is everything for us – no one should be priced out of the festival experience. We strive to keep our events affordable and with the support of sponsors, we are aiming to offer 400 complimentary / free tickets to low-income families.
Our music is aimed at grown-ups, but the whole event remains well and truly aimed at family life.
There is Soft Play for the very small, a Creative Space for little ones and a Tropical Hangout for the older children. You can connect with nature in the Bamboo Forest, find relaxation and calm in the Wellbeing Hideaway, and the Main Stage area is for everyone to celebrate and have some proper family fun!
Our goal is to enable children and their families to experience the outdoors in a way they have not done before and take ownership of their green spaces.
What we'll deliver
- 400 complimentary / free tickets to low income families
- Every £1,000 will provide 100 complimentary / free tickets.
Why it's a great idea
400 residents from low-income families will attend the festival for free.
Children and families will experience music, live performance and arts and crafts, increasing cultural and social capital; perhaps inspiring them and igniting a future career path.
Community cohesion will increase as people share a common experience, get involved and interact. New bonds and ties will develop. A feeling of community inclusion, belonging and togetherness will grow.
Community benefit will rise as small local businesses, from willow weavers to balloon twisters to the local farm cafe, gain from the increased custom and publicity.
Volunteers will benefit from training and work experience, increasing their skills and employability.
Dancing, laughing and having fun will have immediate impacts of happiness and wellbeing, feeding into longer term improvement in health and quality of life.
Steps to get it done
- Once funded, we begin the distribution of complimentary tickets to low income families.
- This includes distribution via other local / London Borough of Barnet organisations, including but not limited to:-
- Young Barnet Foundation
- Local primary schools
- Local places of worship
- Local MP's / Councillors
- Inclusion Barnet
- Local / LB Barnet based arts and cultural centres, such as Arts Depot
- Local / LB Barnet based community centres, such as One Stonegrove
- Our Yard (the community focussed venue)
- Members of the Barnet Arts and Cultural Network
- Local Foodbanks
LB Barnet’s reputation as a leafy borough hides the reality that 49% of residents live in flats, of which only 61% have access to a private outdoor space, and of these an average of 4 flats share a garden.
Couple this with 13,495 children in the borough receiving free school meals (the highest single number in London) and 28% of the borough’s children living in poverty, this paints a picture of a huge number of residents and their families essentially living indoors, without the financial means of accessing much of what the borough has to offer.
In Barnet, the estimated welfare value of green space (£ per year) is £35.44 million, so families missing out is clearly a problem.
