The Family Arts Festival, which brought a diverse range of family friendly events to arts organisations across the country this October, will return for a second year in 2014.
The inaugural festival, which saw 900 organisations, including many across London, host close to 2,000 events before coming to an end on Sunday, will be welcomed back from 17 October to 2 November next year and promises to be even bigger and better.
To celebrate this year’s success, the festival’s organisers are urging those who took advantage of the fantastic array of events on offer in 2013 to vote for their favourite in the first ever Family Arts Festival Awards.
Voted for entirely by the public, the awards aim to recognise organisations that provided exceptional experiences for families throughout the festival, with the winners to be announced in the new year.
Supported by leading arts figures including UK Minister for Culture Ed Vaizey, musical theatre icon Andrew Lloyd Webber and Olivier Award-winning actress Zoë Wanamaker, this year’s festival entertained thousands of families with a diverse programme of events taking place in venues throughout the UK and London, including Shakespeare’s Globe, the Unicorn theatre and the Barbican.
Our annual Kids Go Free promotion also got in on the action, teaming up with our discount ticket booth TKTS to present a Theatreland Treasure Hunt and holding a second West End Choir to allow families to flex their vocal cords with a medley of hit songs led by music theatre company Starling Arts.
Talking about the success of the festival, which came as a result of extensive research untaken by the Family Arts Campaign, the campaign’s Director David Brownlee said: “It has been fantastic to see so many families across the UK take part in the festival in its very first year. It truly has shown what a huge appetite there is for events that people can enjoy together as a family, but the festival was only the beginning. We hope that arts organisations across the UK will continue to deliver exceptional family events and activities throughout their own programmes, and, with plans already underfoot for the Family Arts Festival 2014, there is a lot to look forward to.”
To vote for your favourite Family Arts Festival offering, visit www.familyartsfestival.com, where you will also find a venue search that will allow you to find family friendly arts venues near you. Don’t forget, you can also stay up to date with family productions and news by signing up to our fortnightly Family Bulletin.