Summer festivals success
Fran Healy's V adventure
V festival goers were delighted and wowed by a performance of classic Travis songs at the ECHO and Save the Children tent. Check out this great footage of Fran's impromptu gig on Youtube, and some photos below:
Summer festivals success: 12,000 voices!
The European Commission Humanitarian Aid department and Save the Children joined forces to raise awareness of child malnutrition at various UK festivals in the summer of 2008.
We've been through rain and shine (mostly the former), talking about the vital role of food aid in keeping vulnerable children alive in the world's poorest countries. We've had some fantastic support from festival goers, brilliant volunteers, and of course the marvellous Fran Healy.
Over 12,000 people added their voice to our child survival campaign at festivals around the country, and thousands wore our armbands in support of the world’s poorest children.
Check out what we've been getting up to around the country this summer.
We've been to...
…V Festival. Fran Healy helped us get our message across to festival goers by playing some of his songs at our tent.
Fans gathered quickly to see the Travis frontman belt out some classic tunes with the help of a benevolent fan who was willing to lend his guitar!
Fran supported our campaign not only by wowing fans at this intimate, spontaneous gig; he also signed one of our fifth birthday action cards.
The concert was a highlight in what’s been a great summer for Save the Children and ECHO. We’ve been to festivals around the country raising awareness of childhood malnutrition. Thousands of festival goers supported our campaign at both V and…
... The Big Chill. The weather couldn’t dampen the spirits of these Big Chillers. They had our ponchos to keep dry and loads of fun-filled activities at our stall to take part in.
The Big Chill took place among the picturesque Malvern Hills, and attracted thousands of music fans. Many of the festival-goers ended up at our stall, showing their support for our campaign to save 10 million lives.
We engaged the support of a whopping 3,154 people at this year’s festival. That beats our target of 3,000 hands down.
We had some fantastic young volunteers helping us out at the Big Chill. A couple of them built a fortress with Thirst Aid water bottles, which we were handing out to thirsty festival-goers.
At Camp Bestival 2008 we had the privilege of several super-heroes expressing their support for our campaign, by filling in our 5th birthday action cards.
The festival — held on the beautiful Devon coastline — saw a lovely sunny Saturday that brought festival-goers in their hundreds to our stall, to lounge on the grass and find out more about our work.
We held a couple of packed out drum workshops in our tent. Here, a budding young percussionist decides one set of drums isn’t challenging enough.
Supporters of our campaign basked in the Devonshire sunshine and coloured in our action cards. They were rewarded with festival freebies like cookies, and our brilliant festival survival guides.
We wanted to engage 1,000 Camp Bestivalers in our campaign. Thanks to the wonderful people that attended, we smashed our target. Over 2,000 people pledged their support for our work. Hurrah! Previously, we were at…
...Leamington Peace Festival. Festival goers were out in force. They took a huge variety of actions - including making these lovely origami faces - to show their solidarity with Save the Children and ECHO's fight against hunger.
We've been working with the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Department (ECHO) fighting hunger since 1996. Our armbands (modelled here by one of our brilliant Leamington Peace Festival-goers) represent childhood malnutrition. People wore them as they walked round the festival, and filled in our fifth birthday cards which we'll send to the Prime Minister.
We caused quite a stir with our party tent. Festival organisers told us "Your stall looked great - with lots of children enjoying themselves", and one mum added, "although there's lots of stuff at the festival for adults, the Save the Children stall is the only one aimed at children. What you're doing is fantastic". A serious message, with lots of fun ways to convey it.
We had a fantastic response from Leamington. Thanks to the 1,150 people who signed action cards; they're all going to the Prime Minister. We also enjoyed the company of over 500 children who took part in our activities and talked about the issues surrounding malnutrition and child survival.
We even had the festival bobbies sign our action cards. A great weekend at Leamington! We've also been to...
...Strawberry Fair. We kicked off our festival rounds this year - working alongside ECHO - with a great start in Cambridge. Festival goers were keen to sign our campaign cards and add their voice to help stop 10 million children dying every year before they reach the age of five.
We engaged children and adults of all ages with our activities at Strawberry Fair, they signed our campaign cards, and of course received a festival goodie bag!
We think five is a great age to be! Children at the festival celebrated this by taking part in our fun activities. Every hand coloured in and treasure map created added a voice to Save the Children and ECHO's campaign to raise awareness of childhood malnutrition, and helped more children all over the world reach their fifth birthday.
These festival goers were among 650 people adding their voices to our campaign by signing our fifth birthday cards. They're helping to prevent 10 million children dying every year before they reach their fifth birthday.
Diary of a festival campaigner
16-17 August — V Festival
While the number of children and families at V festival was noticeably smaller than the other festivals we have attended, the enthusiasm people showed towards the cause was heart warming. With the return of the drum workshops and the temptation of water and ponchos to deal with the variable weather conditions there was a constant stream of interested people coming to the Save the Children and ECHO tent.
The drum workshops were a highlight of the festival, and proved to be very popular with festival goers. Budding artists designed birthday cards that would certainly entertain Gordon Brown. And Fran Healy, of Travis fame, stopped at the tent to show his support. Having talked to the volunteers about the campaign activities and filled out his action card, he called for a guitar and a capo from the growing crowd so that he could play a song. An impromptu acoustic gig unfolded in front of our tent and festival organisers said it was one of the most unique festival experiences they had ever been involved in. Those that heard him would remember his support for the campaign as he claimed ‘you don’t get anything for nothing and everyone listening must support the campaign’.
Whilst the rain set in and our tent began to flood this didn’t dampen our efforts to change the world. A recorded clip of Fran promoting Save the Children on the big screens next to the stage prompted 1,300 to make their way to the tent to sign action cards in support of our campaign!
Thanks to Fran’s inspiration, the hard and cheerful work from the volunteers and despite the rain the weekend was a success with nearly 4,000 people signing up to pledge their support for the children.
1-3 August — Big Chill
Set in the idyllic fields of Eastnor, this festival reflects its name admirably. We were positioned between the dance and comedy tents and had a constant stream of punters making their way to the Sunrise Festival next door.
The majority of visitors were young people and adults and we were able to engage them in in depth conversations over the issues. For the first two days the hot weather attracted groups who sat down and got imaginative with the cards. (Many thanks to Bill Bailey for attracting such a huge hoard on Saturday; the ground in front of us was awash with potential converts!)
Even the damp weather on Sunday did not stop people’s enthusiasm. Attracted by our giant, water bottle fortress, they were more than willing to learn about and sign up to our campaign. By the end, however, the fort had been destroyed, but not before we had reached just above our anticipated goal. One possible lesson to be learned is to bring a larger amount of ponchos: even once completely packed up, people were knocking on the canvas tent for any spares!
18-20 July — Camp Bestival
Camp Bestival was an excellent choice of festival: filled with families it was easy to make an instant rapport over the importance of the issues we were dealing with. Based in the Kid’s Field we were in a perfect location, with acrobatic, human flies to the left and the sea glistening a few miles off to our right.
On the Friday night we took advantage of the rain and the huge stream of people entering the site to tempt them with free ponchos: even the weather would prove not to be a dampener to our campaigning! The remainder of the weekend was beautifully hot and we had a constant stream of people chilling out on the rugs, taking time to be creative with the cards and hear more about the cause. We even had children willing to assist by stuffing party bags!
Throughout the day the rhythmical sounds of drumming could be discerned emanating from the main tent as groups of children enjoyed free workshops; it was a fantastically successful way in which to engage with them (although I’m not sure if our neighbours would agree with that…)
As Sunday progressed we began to target the numerous, large groups of people soaking in the last of the atmosphere, as well as entertaining the long queues waiting to use the toilets on either side of us. Everyone was more than willing to listen and give their time and by the end we had managed to double our intended goal.
28-29 June — Carnival de Cuba
By 3pm Victoria Park in London was heaving with people of all ages enjoying salsa in the glorious weather. The relaxed atmosphere allowed us to really spend time with people explaining our child survival campaign.
Families made friends as they gathered on the rugs in front of our stall and discussed the issue of child malnourishment together. After hearing that 10 million children don't reach the age of five every year, one boy, aged 10 said - 'If they're never five that means they don't even get to start to school and learn things. That's terrible'.
Leaving the carnival that evening I felt we had made an impact on people's knowledge and views about malnourishment in children. Where better to achieve this than with the background of face-painted children enjoying taking part in the carnival procession?
14-15 June — Leamington Peace Festival
Groups of parents and children gathered on the grass outside our tent decorating the cards to the Prime Minister and learning about our campaign together. We had a wall of ‘High 5 to reaching 5’ hands and a wall of origami faces which children enjoyed making to show their support. Parents were keen to teach their children — many around the age of 5 themselves — about the stark reality of childhood malnutrition.
As a thank you for taking part in our party we gave away fun freebies and armbands which people wore to show their support.
To raise awareness of our partnership with ECHO we also gave away some of their fantastic publications. Again, parents jumped at the chance to widen their own, and their children’s, knowledge of international issues. The whole event was extremely successful and we were proud to find we’d given away everything we’d come with and had a record number of action cards signed.
7 June — Strawberry Fair
Strawberry Fair in Cambridge was our first festival of 2008 and my first campaigning experience. The crowd was mostly young revellers and I was unsure what reception our fifth birthday-themed tent could expect.
Tentatively, I approached a gaggle of 16 year olds. They were shocked when I explained 10 million children die every year before they reach their fifth birthday, of preventable causes. I showed them our ‘feeding station’, a model of those in the field where we identify malnourished children and provide them with essential food. I explained how more of these are desperately needed to stop children dying of hunger.
The youngsters were eager to sign our fifth birthday action cards - addressed to Gordon Brown - to show their support and remind the Prime Minister of his pledge to dramatically decrease child mortality by 2010. This positive reception encouraged me to approach many more of the revellers. As we packed up that evening we were thrilled with the number of action cards festival goers signed, pledging their support.
All in all we had a hugely successful season full of fun and action. We're greatly looking forward to next summer’s tour where we hope to hit festivals with even more force. See you there!
If you would like more information about our activity at UK festivals this summer, please contact Hannah Culff at h.culff@savethechildren.org.uk
Save the Children is being supported by the European Union at UK Festivals in 2008. The European Commission Humanitarian Aid department helps the victims of humanitarian crises around the world, beyond its own border.
This activiy is being conducted with the financial assistance of the European Commission. The views expressed on this webpage should not be taken, in any way, to reflect the official opinion of the European Commission.
