Its focus over the past three years has been inspiring family audiences through touring high quality arts programming. Soon we were struck by the idea of turning casual conversations into a more formal – though still friendly – organisation.Īnd so the Northern Festivals Network was born, gaining funding from its inception from Arts Council England. It was three or four years after starting Just So before we allowed ourselves the time and space to look up and ask some key questions, like, ‘who else is doing this?’ We met David Agnew from Ramsbottom Festival and Bury Met, and from there we started talking to others. There’s also a whole area of performance and facilities for 0-4-year-olds at the Weleda Peekaboo Garden, and beautiful zones to stretch your minds and relax at The Observatory and The High Seas. This year, families can look forward to more than 200 experiences and performances spanning 12 areas including a glorious lakeside Silver Screen glade dedicated to all things cinematic, the Social Barn for a completely crackers celebration of food, the Forgotten Courtyard for workshops, provocations, debates and talks, the extraordinary Spellbound Forest and eccentric Village Green with some of the best new outdoor performance for families, brilliant bands on the Footlights stage and dance workshops at Jitterbug. It’s underpinned by the Tribal Tournament which we think is the most bonkers competition in the land. With a love of stories and childhood escapades at its heart, it enables families to step out of their day-to-day lives and into a wonderland of world class literature, arts, theatre, dance, music, comedy and creative pursuits. Just So is now multi-award winning and held up as an example of one of the best family festivals in the world. But for a long time, all we really figured out was just how much we still had to learn. We stumbled along with our health and safety manual in one hand and toilet calculator at the ready, all set to figure things out. Find a bit of woodland, put on a bit of music and hold a couple of arts performance in a few pretty tents with some nice lighting. We had the naivety of people who look in from the outside and say, ‘how hard can that be?’. We knew little about the festival sector when we set up Just So Festival (the only arts camping festival in the UK dedicated solely to families) back in 2009. Three years ago, we joined forces with a firm belief that families deserve incredible music and arts festival experiences. You may not know it but the Northern Festivals Network comprises bluedot, Cloudspotting, Festival No.6, Just So Festival, Kendal Calling, Ramsbottom Festival and Underneath The Stars – some of the most exciting festivals in the UK today. Sarah Bird, co-director of festival producer Wild Rumpus, shares the philosophy behind seven Northern festivals and how they are doing things differently through collaboration.
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