Lancaster Family Music Festival 2024

The environment

The festival has a low environmental impact as it uses the city's existing infrastructure. Outdoor stages are supplied by mains electricity and we purposefully use locations not requiring generators. We monitor where audience members are from via a feedback questionnaire. In 2024 61% of respondents travelled less than 5 miles, 31% walked to the festival, 26% arrived by public transport. Over 99% of the food and drink consumed is at existing local businesses and using glasses rather than single-use plastic. We introduced just two food stalls, both of which were local businesses.

The local economy

Lancaster BID’s footfall counters showed an increase of 52,930 in the city centre area over the 4 festival days compared with normal weekends in 2024, producing an estimated economic benefit in excess of £1.9million. Participating venues reported an average increase of 108% in takings compared with a typical weekend.

Volunteering, jobs & education

Our Family Festival events provided employment opportunities for 34 paid freelance facilitators from 16 partner organisations, 7 of which were new and will be developed further in future years.

Arts, culture & heritage

LMF provides a platform for local musicians, practitioners, arts organisations and community groups. The festival featured 334 artists of all genres, from classical to punk, featuring an estimated 1,218 musicians - 65% from the Lancaster district, 22% from surrounding areas in Lancashire & Cumbria - and 64 paid facilitators. Musicians and audiences were from all sections of the community, with representation from all age ranges and ethnic groups. Our project to make the festival as accessible as possible included accessible viewing areas, ramps and improved information on the festival website.

Activity, health and leisure

By bringing together all parts of the community to enjoy music, the festival promotes a sense of wellbeing and community spirit.