With an aim to create a world where everyone can explore and create culture, Cheltenham Festivals is at the heart of championing arts and culture in Cheltenham. We sat down with Festivals’ Co-CEO Ali Mawle, to talk about how they are creating experiences which bring joy, spark curiosity, connect communities and inspire change.
Obviously, they are integral to the “The Festival Town” proposition and you can’t miss the buzz that the Literature, Jazz, Music and Science Festivals bring. They also attract significant visitor income to the town’s hospitality, retail and entertainment industries. In 2024 alone, over 100,000 Festival-goers were welcomed to the Jazz, Literature, Music and Science Festivals.
But what you see during the Festivals themselves is just the tip of the iceberg. We highlight two aspects that may be under-appreciated:
First, while we may get excited about the high-tech future promised by developments like Golden Valley, they won’t succeed if highly skilled people don’t want to live and work here. Cheltenham’s culture and the role of Festivals are thus a key part of the pitch for attracting inward investment to these projects.
Second, it is a not-for-profit charity dedicated to promoting culture as a means to address various challenges, especially those faced by children and younger people in our community. These include the Cybertech skills gap; the climate crisis; low reading for pleasure among children; the mental health crisis; inequity of music provision, and supporting and enabling low-income households and marginalised groups in Cheltenham to access culture.
Ticket sales only account for about half the Festivals’ running costs, attracting big names and funding its year-round community and outreach programmes. So, the support of the local community is vital. Thousands of visitors spend time and money travelling far and wide to enjoy festival experiences, so with all this on our doorstep here, local businesses and residents should take even more advantage of the wonderful experiences and support the town at the same time.
Sponsorship is also critical. With the withdrawal of Baillie Gifford’s sponsorship of literary festivals over protests about its record on fossil fuel and Israel investments, the team have been busy developing relationships with new potential partners to support the charity’s community projects while helping the businesses meet their CSR objectives.
The Festivals would love to see more local businesses join them for 2025 and beyond and there are a whole host of ways to get involved, and at different budget levels. Anyone interested can contact Head of Partnerships, Becky Harte (becky.harte@cheltenhamfestivals.com).
Did you know?
- Cheltenham Festivals believes in world where everyone can explore and create culture; for each day the Festivals are live, six days are spent on community outreach. That’s 180 days of year-round community activity and partnerships.
- Cheltenham Festivals celebrates its 80th Anniversary in 2025. Cheltenham Music Festival was first established in 1945 to “uplift peoples’ spirits with beauty and culture” after the war. This was followed by Cheltenham Literature Festival in 1949, the world’s longest-running Literature Festival. The Jazz and Science Festivals were established in 1996 and Science 2002 respectively.
- Originally set by the Borough Council, Cheltenham Festivals has been completely independent since 2006. All the costs involved in planning, creating, setting up, clearing down and restoring the Festival sites come from generated income.
- Ticket sales account for just under 50% of income. The rest comes from sponsorship, Patrons, membership, donations, trusts or grants. This means they can bring in big names and run the Festivals professionally. More importantly, it also funds the year-round outreach programmes.
- They reach 35,000 children through 400 schools across the UK each year. They work closely with local schools in Gloucestershire, including special educational needs (SEND) schools, home-schooled children and school-aged children from low-income communities.
- Year-round outreach programmes are run by Cheltenham Festivals’ dedicated Learning and Participation Team, who work closely with teachers and community members.
- Reading Teachers = Reading Pupils is Cheltenham Festivals’ flagship literacy programme. Working in partnership with literacy charities across the UK, it promotes a love of reading. It has transformed some teachers’ careers and aims to encourage and inspire children across the country to become passionate readers. Gloucestershire schools are given the chance to meet their favourite authors and attend events at Cheltenham Literature Festival as part of the Literature for Schools programme.
- Other programmes include Musicate, a CPD programme that develops skills and inspires teachers to engage with and teach music, and DataFace, a new programme designed in partnership with CyberFirst (part of GCHQ) and the Jean Golding Institute at Bristol University. DataFace aims to bridge the cyber and tech skills gap by helping teachers and students to interrogate data and present findings creatively.
- Cheltenham Festivals’ free ticket scheme — in partnership with Caring for Communities and People and Cheltenham Welcomes Refugees — has provided over 1,300 free tickets to people who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to attend an event, made possible thanks to generous donations from the charity’s patrons.
- 25% of the Festivals’ activity is free. From the free stages to interactive workshops, these contribute hugely to the buzz that surrounds every Festival. Thanks to the support of Cheltenham BID, Cheltenham Festivals is able to take over the town with free pop-up events in venues, pubs and unique spaces across town.
- Cheltenham Festivals’ groundbreaking FameLab competition and science communication training programme launched in 2005 and has seen 40,000 science communicators take part since then, as well as the launch of its schools counterpart, FameLab Academy and international programmes for both FameLab and FameLab Academy, bringing opportunities to children and adults around the world. Celebrating the 20th year of FameLab and 10th year of FameLab Academy in 2025, the programme continues to discover, train and promote the most exciting and innovative new voices in science, technology and engineering on a global scale.
- Aiming to achieve a 50% reduction in festival-related greenhouse gases by 2025, the Festivals is working to improve its sustainability. In 2023, CO2 output for the Jazz Festival fell from 22 tonnes to just 0.28 tonnes by switching generators from diesel to bio-fuel in 2023, a 96% reduction!
