Half of town's festival events to be free by 2030

An arts charity is working to make half of the events and activities held across its four festivals free by 2030.

Cheltenham Festivals has launched "The Next Chapter", a five-year strategy in which it said it hoped to "deepen its commitment to young people", along with expanding its work with underserved communities.

Ali Mawle, a co-CEO of Cheltenham Festivals, said the charity will host parent and children reading groups in the most disadvantaged areas of Cheltenham, and aims to work with 500,000 children and young people over the next five years.

The charity hosts the Jazz, Science, Music and Literature festivals in Cheltenham every year.

The launch of Cheltenham Festivals' strategy comes after the National Literacy Trust found the number of children aged eight to 18 who read for pleasure hit its lowest rate in 20 years, at 32.7%.

The charity has also set goals to "engage every school with high levels of disadvantage, SEND schools and alternative education providers in Gloucestershire".

It aims to reach twice as many residents of Cheltenham's most economically deprived areas than it does currently.

"We've been working in communities - in schools particularly - working with tens of thousands of children and their teachers year round on programmes which focus on raising reading for pleasure which, as we know, is the greatest single indicator of a child's future success," Mawle said.

The festival hopes to reinvest £37m into the cultural economy into the next five years, which it will raise via ticket sales and sponsorship partnerships, Mawle said.

Mawle said this will be used to fund outreach programmes, allowing social housing clients and people helped by charities such as Cheltenham Welcomes Refugees to choose tickets to festival events they want to attend.

"There are many, many people who don't see [the festivals] as being for them and have a number of barriers to taking part in those festivals," she said.

"Indeed, they only pop up for 30-odd years a day, so for our vision of a world where everyone can experience culture, we need to do more than that."

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