Member Spotlight - Huddersfield Mrs Sunderland Festival
Member Spotlight January 2024 - Huddersfield Mrs Sunderland Festival
For the first time, we will be spotlighting one of our many festivals to highlight their success and to inspire other festivals.
This month is all about the Huddersfield Mrs Sunderland Performing Arts Festival. The festival runs for 11 days across the city, with over 5000 people expected to participate this year in classes, workshops and a competition for Young Musician of the Year. The first Mrs Sunderland Competition was held on the 12th and 13th of April 1889. That makes the festival older than radio, zips and sliced bread!
As preparations get underway for the festival next month, the people behind the Huddersfield Mrs Sunderland Festival spoke to BIFF about the success of the festival, their new Young Ambassadors scheme and what to expect from a hectic and exciting few weeks of events.
10 years ago the festival was in decline, numbers were in decline and the festival was basically losing money. Not a good place to be. The idea was to reverse all of that
Now in its 135th year, the 2024 Huddersfield Mrs Sunderland Festival is shaping up to be the best one yet. Taking over the Huddersfield Town Hall, throughout the week there will a range of workshops, classes and a Young Musician of the Year competition, where performers from across the country compete for a grand prize of £1000. Everything culminates in the Last Night of the Festival Concert, with an adult choir performance and the winner of the Young Musician of the Year taking to the stage.
Year on year, the festival has grown its participation, audience numbers and workshops, as well as bringing in a range of sponsorship, a strong social media presence and growing recognition in the festival community.
Ray Brown, who became Chair of the festival ten years ago, highlights the excitement that builds when the festival is on. “Certainly, when the choirs arrive, there’s a massive influx of people as the town hall tends to be sold out. Car parks are at a premium and one or two coffee shops have frights! I recall one when somebody went in and said 'Can I have 40 lattes please?'. I think they didn’t think he was serious, but he was! It can get quite exciting.”
The organisers, brimming with enthusiasm, love, and passion for the festival, have worked hard over the last 10 years to bring the festival to where it is today. Ray explains the issues that the festival had when he took over. “We were getting feedback that the old Victorian festival was dull, elitist, nothing like the way the committee perceived it."
One of the first things they worked on was updating the logo and the branding of the festival to be more modern, striking, and recognisable. The bright yellow, which now adorns the website, clothing and banners across the festival was chosen. “This isn’t a colour we chose because it works well our complexions or anything else!” explained Karen Cousins, Vice Chair of the festival.
Not only does the yellow branding help the festival to stand out, it also serves another purpose for festival attendees.
“For obvious reasons in the Town Hall, anybody wearing this colour (a bit like a policeman) can be approached”. Karen notes. “They walk in and think that person will know where we need to go."
“From a child protection point of view, if you are wearing yellow, you are very approachable and friendly. We have meeters and greeters to make everyone feel as relaxed as possible."
The change of branding was the catalyst for a lot of changes within the festival and helped build the foundation for what the festival has become. “From this came a website, clothing, business cards, signage, everything”. Ray explains “We’ve essentially doubled the number of people participating and the finances of the organisation are stable."
Sponsorship has also played a crucial role in the sustainability of the festival, with more money for classes and workshops being supplied by local sponsors. Today, they are sponsored by a local brewery, a local firm of solicitors and the local university, amongst others.
Ray’s business background has helped him secure sponsors for the festival. “We try to build relationships with our sponsors, understand what is of value to them and deliver on that. We keep them totally informed on the element that they are supporting. Basically, we try to build a relationship whereby they feel like they are getting value for what they are doing and they are valued."
The energy from the volunteers has helped to develop new ideas to build their social media and suggestions for new workshops ideas. It is a committee that values everyone’s voice.
“We’ve had people come into the committee who have some knowledge about different things and it’s infiltrated the committee to become part of what we do in a sort of synergistic way. We’ve developed into a more technical committee. Some of us will sit there in committee and say, ‘I don’t know how to do this’, but we are always willing to learn." explains Di Schofield, who is a committee member for the festival.
This has extended to a new scheme that the Mrs Sunderland Festival has launched, their Young Ambassadors [YA] scheme.
I didn’t think twice before becoming a Young Ambassador for the Mrs Sunderland Festival
The scheme currently involves two young ambassadors who will assist in giving support to young performers, through guidance and support. They will sit in on meetings, contribute ideas and become a voice for the younger generation at the Mrs Sunderland Festival. The two ambassadors who were chosen for this year’s YA scheme are Madeleine North and Emily Richmond, who have been involved with Mrs Sunderland festival for a number of years.
“I think the main thing is that me and Emily are going to add some youth to the festival” explains Madeleine, one of the Young Ambassadors.
“I think it’s important for the committee to see things from a performer point of view” Emily adds. “And we are the future, so we need to get involved now!”
Di is heavily involved with the Young Ambassador scheme. “We particularly chose the two ambassadors this year because we know them well. We know them very well as they’ve been coming for absolutely years, since they were tiny tots. We knew they would do a good job as they’ve been real supporters of the festival."
Karen, who also helped to organise the Young Ambassadors scheme, shared some of the new ideas that one of the ambassadors bought to the role.
“Straight away she said, ‘If I see a child, I can recognise in their face that it’s their first time at a festival and they are anxious, scared or aren’t sure what to do. I can go up to them, get down to their eye level and talk to them to calm their fears’. It’s the kind of job that we’ve done in the past but it’s great when it comes from someone who is 16 or 17.”
Madeleine explains some other aspects that Young Ambassadors can bring to the festival. “Social media is so important to spread the word and me and Emily really understand social media. It’s great that we’ve been able to set up our own Instagram account to post videos that we’ve made."
Di emphasises what development opportunities can come through the YA scheme . “It looks wonderful on a CV if you’ve been a youth ambassador for a festival. It also encourages them to be part of the festival and, who knows, future members of the committee. It’s a feed through, thinking of years to come."
Karen also discussed the importance of succession and how the youth ambassadors can play a role in this. “There’s been some fabulous festivals that I went to as a child or taken my choirs to, that have unfortunately had to fold for lots of different reasons. People assume a festival has to fold because it doesn’t have any money but in most cases that isn’t actually the case. It’s the lack of people to come forward and volunteer. To me, succession is crucial."
Growing audiences is something that we hope to build
The festival in its current form is thriving, but as Di explains, there is still room to grow and improve.
“We have banners up everywhere saying the festival is taking place. It’s a massive tradition in Huddersfield, but when we’ve done surveys on the streets giving leaflets out, I would say at least 50% of the people we’ve spoken to haven’t heard of us. It’s only been going on for 134 years!"
There’s a strong sense of community amongst the committee members and the enthusiasm amongst the entire team is something to be admired, as Karen points out.
“It has a really nice, fuzzy warm feeling and there’s no such thing as coming last. Whether they think they could have played that piece better or whatever, they are still walking out with a smile on their face. We work hard on that, it doesn’t just happen.”
“One of our main aims is to ensure that, as a performer walks out of the town hall, whether they have a piece of paper in their hand, a critique from an adjudicator, or a trophy, they want to come back next year. That’s crucial. If they want to be back here next year, if we’ve done that then that’s what it’s all about”.
Ray also backs this up. “Morale is high and there’s always an element of fun, laughter is always present. Everyone is a volunteer and they don’t have to be here. Unless they are enjoying themselves and being respected, why would they come? But they do keep coming. The fact things are improving and there’s over 5000 people coming this year is ‘Wow’! They’ve done it and they know they’ve done it. We’ve done the first 135 years anyway!”
The Huddersfield Mrs Sunderland Festival runs from Sunday 4th February and Wednesday 14th to Saturday 24th February 2024. More information can be found on www.mrssunderlandfestival.com.