Today, we released our 2024 Findhorn Bay Festival Evaluation & Outcomes Report, marking the success of our 5th festival. Over 10 days, we brought an estimated £687,202 in local economic benefit through visitor spending and the allocation and local expenditure of project budgets.
Our full Festival Evaluation and Outcomes report provides all the insights, feedback and impacts of the Festival 2024!
With 119 ticketed and free events across ten days, the festival attracted 10,565 attendances across audience members, creative programme participants, artists, volunteers and staff.
Total audiences were 8,986 made up of 3,871 at ticketed events and 5,115 across open-access and free events. Around 58% of the audience came from Moray, 34% from the rest of Scotland, 5% from elsewhere in the UK, 2% international audiences and 1% unknown. Compared to the 2022 Festival, this represents an increased percentage of our regional audiences, suggesting that local support has strengthened with a slight increase in our international audiences.
260 artists ‘made creative things happen’ across Moray.
“There is a feeling that everyone feels invested in what is going on… the artists, the organisers, the audience and the local community. It is exhilarating to be a part of it all.”
Participating Artist Feedback
Participation and engagement are the ‘beating heart’ of the festival. We supported artists to create new work that engaged with people and places; our artists-in-residence shared work inspired by and co-created with our local community and included an international collaboration between Moray’s very own Dopey Monkey and Jean Luc Thomas and Gab Faure from Brittany. Out of Darkness Theatre Company was supported to create a new street theatre work encompassing our festival themes of nature, connection and belonging. Our international connections was celebrated with artists from France, Colombia, Spain and Ukraine.
Our Window Wanderland event attracted over 40 window-based artworks, created by an estimated 348 people of all ages from the Forres area including local households, families, businesses, community groups and schools. It brought smiles to many more people and our estimate of spectators was between 1,500-2,000.
“Findhorn Bay Festival gives Moray residents opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise have.”
Window Wanderland Participant
During the festival, we had a range of ‘get involved’ activities and workshops for all ages. 1,244 people accessed programmes and participated – 778 people through workshops and creative learning programmes and 466 people through schools, care homes and community groups.
Many local businesses benefitted from increased footfall.
“Every year The Findhorn Bay Festival never fails to draw people from far and wide as well as Moray into Forres and Findhorn. It certainly livens up the town and brings a lovely feeling of culture as well as an uptake in sales for all the local businesses.
Carrie Sarah Hughes, Cafe 1496, Forres
Kresanna Aigner, CEO/Creative Director, Findhorn Bay Arts and Festival Director said: “This year’s festival built on the success and engagement seen in previous festivals and provided our audiences with the very best in cultural experiences. The festival programme was eclectic and did what we wanted it to do the most, which was to welcome the world to Moray to celebrate the very best of local, national and international experiences in music, theatre, dance, circus, exhibitions and family events for all to enjoy“.
* Image Credit: Marc Hindley