Festival at The Fort
Hampshire Music Education Hub and The Grange Festival Learning worked in partnership to develop a two-year, place based project in Gosport to build on the success of a previous pilot project. The Grange Festival’s strategy was centered on community engagement, while Hampshire Music Education Hub had recognised Gosport as an area of low engagement, with some of the lowest participation in their services. Culture Connects organised a meeting between the two parties to explore potential collaboration and to discuss how to shape the programme.
All parties were aligned in their goal to create a programme that adhered to the priorities outlined in Gosport’s cultural strategy, focusing on fresh content in a heritage setting with a strong emphasis on children and young people. Hampshire Music Education Hub and The Grange Festival Learning agreed to create Festival at The Fort, a five-day event at Fort Brockhurst featuring programming either created by or tailored for children and young people, connecting them to their local community through arts, culture and creativity.
Developing the festival gave the project leads an opportunity to involve the wider community and to engage the adults surrounding the participants, while also providing a platform to showcase and celebrate the work they had created. Gosport has a well-established festival and music culture, but previously there had been nothing solely aimed at children, young people and families, which meant that the project was able to deliver something new and exciting in the area.
“I just want to thank you again for the amazing day today. Our children were absolutely shining with happiness throughout the performance. It is so important that the children have these fantastic performing experiences and they enjoyed every moment.”
Over the course of the two years, a substantial group of participants and organisers produced a significant body of work, including consultations with children and young people, physical and digital outcomes, as well as songs and resources for local schools and teachers to utilise going forward. Nearly 1500 participants from primary to college age took part in these sessions across many different mediums.
During the project, an independent evaluator collected insights from participants, schools and audiences to deepen understanding of the local community. This information will inform future festivals and will be shared with other groups to support the development of diverse projects with new partners.
The Festival at the Fort project is a fantastic example of organisations with shared goals and aligned objectives partnering to pool resources and deliver a significant, impactful piece of work. This project established lasting success whilst paving the way for future collaborative opportunities.
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