‘We must get value for money’ for Royston Arts Festival

The 2013 Royston Arts Festival was a success in spite of the organisers taking “greater risks”.

An Evaluation Report on last year’s events was published last week and presented at the arts festival’s annual meeting in the Picture Palace Cinema at Royston Town Hall. It showed that more than 5,000 people attended events and reported their experience as excellent or good.

But arts festival chairman Graham Palmer told the audience that there were still challenges ahead as plans for this year’s events are being drawn-up by the managing committee.

“No matter what we do we need to ensure that we get value for money,” he said. “In spite of taking greater risks last year we have managed to balance the books which is important for our future.”

He continued that the arts festival would continue to run over a nine-day period after the committee had been told that it had outgrown its original four-days of events.

“Our aim for 2014 is to develop the organisation and provide further opportunities for local arts organisations and practitioners,” he said.

At the meeting organisers were presented with a Six-point Promise certificate, a scheme run by Hertfordshire’s volunteer centres which endorses excellence in volunteer management.

A copy of the arts festival’s evaluation report, together with a film of the festival that was shown at the meeting, are available at www.roystonartsfestival.org.