Stewart Collins explains how the Henley Festival has arrived at a financially sustainable position for its annual five-day celebration of the arts.
You have to raise how much? is the most common response directed at Henley Festivals marketing and sponsorship managers, and lets face it, for a five-day festival, box office and sponsorship targets of £850,000 and £600,000 respectively are pretty out of the ordinary. The Festival hits the doughty old age of 25 this summer, and whilst over the years it has been no stranger to the normal will we/wont we anxieties faced by the average arts organisation, there is no doubt that the festival as a whole is an unusual beast. Public money is very much at the margins of the Henley model although it is regularly applied for, welcomed, and well used when it does come. The festivals education and community projects are regular beneficiaries of grants from Arts Council England and immediate local authorities, but as part of the overall financial equation the proportion is very low.
In many respects the Henley Festival does behave like an arts festival. Programming is exceptionally broad, varied and non-repetitive, new work and commissions feature regularly as part of the mix, and much of the festivals work takes place out of festival time through its exceptionally active constitutional parent, the Henley Festival Trust. The Trust works in local schools throughout the year as well as providing music therapy for the brain injured and supporting a raft of local cultural organisations but despite behaving like an arts festival Henley survives without the kind of public money widely regarded as essential.
How does Henley Festival survive? The answer lies in four factors: the shape of the festival, the numbers catered for, the Henley demographic and the fact that the festival really can deliver to corporate sponsors. Taking these in turn, the shape of the festival is very unusual, and more typical of rock music events. There are four stages across the site of various sizes and events run continuously for up to eight hours across the five evenings. Included in the ticket are up to six programmed events, quite apart from all the visual art on show and the resident company of eccentrica that is advertised as residing around every corner. In terms of numbers, the capacity is 4,500 people per night, so if the festival sells well, thats a lot of people and a lot of box office money.
Of course, Henley is not exactly the countrys centre of urban deprivation. It would be wrong to say that there arent pockets of genuine disadvantage in the area, but essentially the Thames Valley is a well-heeled area. Then there is the fact that sponsors looking for a great night out can have one at Henley. Albert Roux is the chef in the principal on-site restaurant, and his presence clearly makes sense to a number of the corporates who regularly support the festival.
It is not a completely static and positive environment of course. Sponsorship is notoriously fickle and with Corporate Social Responsibility strategies changing the way many larger companies approach sponsorship, the idea of the big bash at large public events isnt quite the rage it used to be. In response to these changes, festivals are currently repositioning their sponsorship packages. Then theres the box office. Where most arts organisations would reasonably expect to budget on the basis of a 5060% full house, Henley Festival has to achieve around 80%. Thats a big task year-on-year. The festival follows immediately after the Henley Regatta, and has little option but to use a number of inherited contractors to deliver the infrastructure; and where there is no option, there is little negotiating muscle to reduce costs. Indeed the Regatta itself from whom the festival enclosure is rented has dramatically increased its charges to the festival in recent years, as have the suppliers of the festivals signature marquees and temporary structures.
Each and every festival in the country inevitably has to be unique in one way or another. Without some form of Unique Selling Point why bother? Henley has without doubt carved out a particularly unusual niche with its multi-stage, outdoor environment and dress-code model (men are requested to wear Black Tie but a suit and tie are acceptable), and as a model it has worked for a number of years in fact 25 to be precise. 25 more? I wouldnt bet against it.
Stewart Collins is Artistic Director of the Henley Festival.
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