Case Study 1 - Echo Fest 2024
Event Overview
Echo Fest was a youth arts festival held at Carey Camp on August 8, 2024, from 1pm to 5pm. The event aimed to:
- Provide accessible activities for young people aged 11-16 year as part of the HAF Programmes.
- Serve as a platform for consulting with young people for Strategic Alliance Partners.
- Offer young singers and bands the opportunity to perform to an audience.
Organisers: The festival was organised by Dorset Council – Youth Voice team, Dorset Music Hub, Carey Outdoor Education Centre, and the Holiday Activity and Food Programme team.
Objectives
- Accessible Activities: The festival featured a variety of activities designed to engage young people, including arts and crafts, archery, low ropes, music tech, DJing, and a glitter tent.
- Consultation Platform: Partners such as The Big Conversation team and East and Purbeck Locality Youth team were present to discuss youth-related issues with attendees.
- Performance Opportunities: Young singers and bands had the chance to perform both scheduled and impromptu sets, showcasing their talents to an audience.
Attendance
Over 120 young people attended the event, engaging in the activities and interacting with the partners.
Feedback: Feedback from attendees was largely positive, with a significant percentage stating the event met or exceeded their expectations. Popular activities included food, arts and crafts, and music. Suggestions for future events included climbing, more sports activities, and circus-type drop-in activities.
Venue
Carey Outdoor Education Centre provided an exciting setting with accessible facilities. Onsite tents offered shelter from the rain and space for activities, contributing to the festival atmosphere. Limited parking was managed with minibuses from Leeson House and Weymouth Outdoor Education Centre.
Food
The food, provided by the chef at Leeson House, was of excellent quality. The menu included baked potatoes and wraps with healthy fillings. The Friendly Food Club facilitated cooking sessions, allowing young people to make fruit and pasta pots.
Activities
A range of activities were offered, including arts and crafts, archery, low ropes, music tech, DJing, and a glitter tent. Performances by young singers and bands were well-received, with attendees engaging positively throughout the day.
Our survey also indicated that if children were not participating in this event, they would be engaged in passive solo activities at home such as playing computer games. This suggests that this event has been a success in enabling these children to participate in active movement and social activities.
It also gave children an opportunity to explore different expressions of art and wellbeing. Young People expressed their feelings through positive affirmations on a wall of positivity:
“Being different is a good thing”
“Remember the sun comes after the rain”
“Just be you”
Future Considerations
- Increase the availability of sports activities.
- Consolidate activities to create a busier and more vibrant festival atmosphere.
Resources
The event was primarily funded by HAF and supported by partners. The organising team demonstrated strong teamwork and dedication, ensuring the event ran smoothly.
Future Considerations:
- Explore additional funding sources to continue the event in other areas of Dorset, potentially linked to Local Action Groups (LAGs).
- Identify local partners to deliver the event in their areas, building on the Echo Fest model.
- Understand event timings vs competition of other similar events such as, Bestival, Purbeck Folk festival and Dorchester anonymous festival
- Setting and environment was ideal for atmosphere, venue space and facilities, but location (in the countryside) was limiting for parking and transportation. Where children could attend without parental chaperones a more accessible location by public transportation would be desirable.
Objective Evaluation
- Accessible Activities: Successfully provided a variety of engaging activities for young people aged 11-16 years.
- Consultation Platform: Enabled partners to consult with young people, although NHS and Police partners were unable to attend.
- Performance Opportunities: Offered young singers and bands the chance to perform to an audience, fulfilling this objective.
Echo Fest 2024 was a successful event that met its objectives and provided valuable experiences for young people in Dorset. Future events can build on this model to continue engaging and consulting with youth in the region.
Secondary impact
As well as meeting objectives of HAF this event also raised the profile of the programme by having good media coverage of the event on social media with event listings and post creation. The event was also covered on Eventbrite and local event listings sites and news such as ‘What’s on in Dorset’ and ‘Dorset Echo.’ A review of ‘search engine results when looking for local events showed the event appeared with HAF in results as top and third listings.
The festival name is the same as another popular larger festival so that also appears in search results, but good key words use in Dorset Echo listing has helped boost the SEO to top result.
Print material was also shared with leaflet drops in the local areas and at local events such as Wareham carnival (with permission from organisers) and received a very positive reaction.
Future Considerations:
- Re-naming the festival with consideration to user journey and thought process with search engine results.
- Partnering with other providers to piggyback comms and messaging.
Case Study 2 - The Friendly Food Club
During 2024 The Friendly Food club delivered 60 cooking and healthy eating workshops, reaching 2872 attendees across the county. In partnership with the HAF team they also put together and delivered 1005 Activity and Recipe bags over the Christmas holidays.
Key comments from Providers
The friendly food club is always a popular activity. Being able to offer it as part of HAF has meant that many of the young people that attend are from low-income households where variety of food is restricted. Some young people come from families where parents have mental health problems meaning that daily routines such as cooking is difficult. Some young people with SEN find trying new foods difficult, but by taking part in a group activity with others they are more inclined to try new foods. It allowed us to get the children to make their own lunches with suitably trained and experienced staff, which is difficult for us to do as our staff are coaches not cooks/chefs!
Comments from children/young people
- 'I am going to make this for my mum'.
- 'We've never had enough money to buy a Chinese takeaway, but now I know how to make one at home'
- 'I have never cut vegetables before, but now I know how to do it'
- 'I'm not allowed to cook at home'.
Feedback from parents
- On collection some parents were very surprised at some of the food their children had tried and liked and seemed excited to have recipes the children wanted to try.
- The majority of parents were delighted their children were given the opportunity to prepare, cook and try oriental food which was healthy and easy to make.
Activity and Recipe Bags
The Friendly Food Club worked with the HAF team to put together 1,005 food and activity kits which were distributed to children attending HAF provision across the county. The following video tells the story of this initiative involving 26 volunteers and 350 hours of preparation and delivery.
