W12 Festival 2015
“ It gets better each year!” Liz Clark, Hammersmith Community Gardens Association
Introduction
2015 saw the fourth annual W12 Festival taking place on the White City Estate in the borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. On Saturday 25th July from 12pm until 6pm, local people took to the streets for an afternoon of family fun. Commonwealth Avenue was closed for the day and filled with market stalls, local caterers, performances from talented musicians and a giant Ferris wheel. Two large green spaces adjacent to the road were given over to organised sports and games, giant inflatable’s, local DJ’s, creative projects and, thanks to the sunshine, a very popular water slide. The White City Community Centre garden hosted the second stage as well as a much loved tea party and the whole site was festooned with handmade bunting, balloons and banners.
Over 2500 people attended the festival which is double the attendance of last year. The festival was hosted and funded by Big Local with additional funding received from Mitie and Television Centre and in kind donations of time, services and equipment from many local organisations and charities.
Festival planning was led by an appointed coordinator from the local area alongside a planning committee made up of local residents and representatives from different organisations and charities. The day itself was led almost entirely by volunteers from the local area and drew both a local crowd and visitors from further afield as well as MP Andy Slaughter and Deputy Mayor Councillor Daryl Brown.
“I thought it was a great atmosphere, very well attended with lots to do. Very enjoyable and I stayed much longer than intended!” Andy Slaughter, Local MP
“What’s fantastic is to see so many young children taking part, running stalls with their parents, selling cakes they’ve baked and demonstrating magnificent skills. It’s very inspirational I have to say.” Deputy Mayor Councillor Brown
The Vision
The vision for W12 Festival is to bring together and celebrate the Big Local Community of Wormholt and White City.
This year Big Local identified four key aims;
-To host a fun, family event that attracts and is enjoyed by all members of the local community
-To facilitate an increase in resident participation and leadership
-To provide a platform for local talent and promotional opportunities for local projects
-To encourage members of the community to engage with the work of Big Local
Participation
An events management internship was offered in April 2015 to a local resident from the Big Local area of Wormholt and White City. An initial Festival Manager was also appointed but the role didn’t work out as expected and so the internship grew into a coordinators role with additional hours and responsibility. The Festival Coordinator worked closely alongside Big Local Manager Emma Morgan, Big Local Chair Garry McMillan and Big Local Events Vice Chair Hanan Ghouneim.
In the lead up to the festival, many organisations and charities worked with Big Local to assist with organising activities, acquiring equipment and resources and helping with the logistics of the event. Key contributions came from Mitie, Television Centre, Hammersmith Community Gardens, Community Champions, QPR, London Sports Trust, Phoenix High School, Only Connect, Westfield Presents, White City Adventure Playground, St Michael and St George Church, Our Lady Fatima Church, Snappy Snaps Shepherds Bush and LBHF Housing Office with additional contributions on the day from the Masbro Centre. The planning committee this year included representatives from a wide variety of organisations along with local residents from Wormholt and White City. Attendance at fortnightly planning meetings averaged at around 12 including at least 5 local residents.
The event itself attracted 37 promotional stall holders from organisations and charities operating within the borough. In addition to this there were 18 marketplace stall holders, 13 of whom were local residents. 5 local residents who have received Community Chest Funding from Big Local also had stalls promoting their projects.
Videography of the auditions and the festival was provided by a local resident as were the positions of Stage DJ and MC. 17 artists performed across 2 stages, with 10 performers local to Wormholt and White City. Each of the 6 DJ’s providing music in the Big Local field were local residents and this particular zone was largely lead by another local resident who has received Community Chest funding and support from Big Local. The Big Local team were actively involved in planning the day and manning the event alongside staff from WCE and an incredible 85 volunteers.
The festival drew a crowd of 2500 people, the majority of which reside in Wormholt and White City.
The Planning Process
The planning process began in April 2015 with an invitation to all local residents currently engaged with Big Local to join the W12 Festival planning committee. The committee met for the first time on Wednesday 1st April at Phoenix High School. The vision for the festival was shared and feedback gathered from last year’s event. The committee met weekly throughout April to generate momentum and then fortnightly from May onwards. Throughout the months leading up to the festival, invites were continually sent out to the local community via email, social media, text and word of mouth to try and encourage more people to get involved.
“The planning meetings were great, very well attended with well spaced out intervals. A similar format would work well again next year.” Garry McMillan, Chair of Big Local
Auditions were held in May for those who wanted to perform at the festival. Posters and flyers were made to advertise the auditions and were distributed throughout the area by volunteers. Whilst there were a number of great acts who auditioned it was felt that with more of a marketing drive, a bigger team to help with distribution of flyers and earlier use of social media would draw a larger crowd resulting in a more diverse range and style of performances.
In order to bring structure and momentum to the planning process, sections of the festival were divided into sub groups and sub group leaders were appointed. Each sub group leader was responsible for calling together a small group of volunteers to plan and put into action specific tasks relating to their section. The aim was for sub group leaders to feedback to the wider group so that the bulk of the main decision making would still take place at the fortnightly planning committee meetings. In reality, a lot of decisions were made within the smaller sub groups resulting in the main planning committee meetings acting as a wider group catch up. The majority of the administrative work for the festival was undertaken by paid members of staff at Big Local rather than local volunteers and this also resulted in the vast majority of decision making being made by paid members of staff as well, albeit it with the opinions and suggestions of local volunteers in mind. Learning from this, in order to achieve the aim of increasing resident participation and leadership, it is important to ensure that local residents are actively involved in the smaller sub groups and not just the main planning committee so that decision making can be more resident led. It would be advantageous to work towards appointing local residents as sub group leaders to increase a sense of local ownership of the festival and to work towards making the event sustainable for future years.
Prioritising Structure/Prioritising Participation
With a number of professionals at the helm, W12 Festival 2015 was in many ways very well organised. The event was well thought through with good contingency plans and an increased offering of activities than last year as more ideas were able to be seen through to fruition. On the flip side, some felt what the festival would lose in terms of professionalism if more responsibility was given to local residents and volunteers would be made up for by it being more of a reflection of the local area, more home grown and therefore attracting more local people to join in and gain a sense of pride and ownership over the event, which would help with regard to sustainability in the future. This years event clearly benefitted from increased structure and having a designated coordinator focused on pulling all of the different aspects of the event together enabled everyone involved to achieve a great deal. It seems a balance needs to be struck between benefitting from the structure of having an appointed leader and encouraging a more fluid approach so to engage new members of the society who may have less experience but lots of great ideas and skills to contribute.
Community participation was prioritised with regards to creativity. A creative subgroup was established in April that was originally comprised solely of paid professionals from Big Local, Hammersmith Community Gardens Association, White City Adventure Playground and Only Connect. However, the ideas that came out of this group were largely led and taken forward by local residents volunteering their time and talents. A weekly creative session was established at the Community Centre at which local residents made bunting and flags for the festival, and also shared ideas about how to engage more local people through creative arts. Rather than create all of the artwork prior to the day, as a group it was decided to invite local people to take part in creative activities during the festival. The railings around the old Nubian Life Centre were wrapped with fabric to create a large scale open art canvas on which anyone at the festival could draw or paint to create a piece of community art. This ‘Creative Corner’ was a big success and three large painted canvases were created which will be displayed at an exhibition in the Autumn.
One of the local residents who volunteered at weekly creative sessions set up at stall at the festival to showcase his sculptural work to inspire creativity amongst residents. Off the back of this he has been invited to take part in local community workshops demonstrating art techniques and processes to young people through Hammersmith Community Gardens summer play scheme. This is an encouraging example of how the summer festival can act as a platform for local talent.
Realising ideas
By the nature of a creative endeavour, there were lots of ideas thrown into the mix during the initial festival planning meetings. Decision making about which ideas to move forward with largely owed to practicalities – resources, time and volunteers. There were an abundance of ideas that could work brilliantly at a future W12 Festival but would require an earlier start date for planning such as running workshops with local schools, creating a food market, planning a fashion show and putting on a carnival parade. It was also noted through the planning process that marketing for the event could have started much earlier to get the festival on the radar of the local community in good time for everyone to think about the ways in which they would like to get involved.
Marketing and PR
The festival was promoted through branded flyers and posters and three large vinyl banners as well as online through email and social media. The social media following of Big Local on both Facebook and Twitter really grew during the lead up to the festival, with affiliate partners and booked artists joining in with online promotion of the event. A press release was written and circulated throughout local networks and local DJ’s taking part in the festival helped by promoting the event on their radio shows. Big Local branding on the day of the festival was strong with the very visible Big Local Dome plus pink gazebos, balloons and flags, stewards in Big Local branded pink hi vis vests and official branded polo shirts for the Big Local committee chairs. Plaques were also created and displayed by Community Chest funding recipients. A festival programme was distributed by stewards which featured performing artists and thanked organisations who provided sponsorship.
To improve next year, the festival would benefit from a clear marketing strategy and a task force dedicated to implementing this. Marketing the event well is crucial with regards to securing sponsorship, recruiting volunteers and drawing a crowd on the day. More attention needs to be given to the Big Local website, to ensure that information on there is up to date and more time needs to be given to increasing Big Locals following across social media in order for the event to be picked up by different media channels. Promotion of the festival needs to start earlier next year so that it can feature in the summer activities publications created by the council. The appointment of a Marketing and Communications Coordinator will greatly help this to happen.
Impact
Impact on Children
There was an emphasis on play at this years festival with an aim to encourage young people to play across the site in their own way, as well as through the specific activitiesprovided for them. This was encouraged creatively through the look of the festival through spraypainted chalk designs on the road, dressed up trees and an open art canvas, as well as through fun childrens activities including a giant water slide, free disposable cameras and plenty of space for games and running around. It was noted at one point that the decision to pay to close the road for the day felt entirely worth the cost even just to have enabled a ball game amongst local children to take place on the street outside where they live. Seeing children playing on the festival road and throughout the green spaces added to the overall sense of freedom and celebration of the day.
“I love ALL the activities!” Amal, local resident aged 7
68 children took part in the Official Photographers Project, using disposable cameras to take pictures of the festival from their point of view. This activity proved very popular and has enabled Big Local to engage with a number of new families who will now be added to the communications database. The photographs will be exhibited in the Autumn at a celebration event showcasing all the artwork from the festival which will again help the local community to engage with the work of Big Local. Each child who took part in the project was given a hi vis vest to wear which gave them a role on the day, including them as important contributors to the community celebration. The project was well received by both the children who took part and their parents and carers and is definitely an activity the team will seek to include at future Big Local events.
“My boys had a great time with the cameras. At first they were a bit confused as they couldn't "see" the photos but they soon got the hang of it.‘Look at me, I'm an artist’ and ‘these colours will look good in the photos’ were some of their comments.We would all love to come to the exhibition and look forward to it.“ Elsa McMillan, local resident
Impact on Volunteers
85 volunteers took on roles at the festival ranging from stewarding, first aid, artists support, selling raffle tickets and serving volunteer lunches. Set up and pack down of the entire site bar the stages and the fairground rides was also undertaken by volunteers. The festival provided an opportunity for local people to take part in a fun community event, get to know their neighbours through serving on a team together and feel a sense of pride at what was accomplished. Acomprehensive volunteers briefing was held the day before the festival at which the logistics of the day were discussed and roles allocated. There was a real buzz in the room during this meeting and throughout the day of the festival all the volunteers seemed to be enjoying themselves and engaging with the local community.
It has been noted that improvements could be made to the allocation of duties for next years festival. Careful consideration needs to be taken when looking at the different roles needed on the day with an aim to increase the number of volunteers allocated to the busiest roles, namely looking after our marketplace stall holders and manning the Big Local dome.