Dumfries and Galloway Council has published a new guide to safely planning and delivering events in the region – the Community Events Toolkit will be available at www.dumgal.gov.uk from Friday 11 June.
The toolkit is aimed at being a practical resource for volunteer events organisers in Dumfries and Galloway and to encourage new festivals and events to be conceived and delivered.
Councillor Andy Ferguson, Chair of the Council’s Communities Committee said, “The Council is one of the leading authorities in Scotland when it comes to events planning and support. It was important that we updated our previous Events Toolkit to provide as much guidance and information to events organisers as possible, in an accessible format, to encourage festivals and events to restart safely in Dumfries and Galloway.”
Councillor John Martin, the Vice-Chair of the Communities Committee said, “Dumfries and Galloway has a wonderful range of festivals and events that showcase our environment, heritage and landscape. They really are important to our tourism sector and community life. These festivals and events are driven forward by dozens of volunteer events organisations which are so invaluable to our region.”
The Council is holding a series of Community Conversations on Events Restart and the Toolkit. The Conversations take place online on June 15 & 16. Members of the public can request a copy of the new Community Events Toolkit and find out more information on the Community Conversations by emailing [email protected]
The previous DGC Events Toolkit was published in 2016.
The new Community Events Toolkit provides accessible helpful information on all key aspects of events planning in Dumfries and Galloway and includes downloadable risk assessments that can be modified for local events.
Major Festivals and Events Strategy 2018-2021 Fact File
Financial year 2021/22 is the final year of the existing MFES 18-21. On February 9 2021 the Council approved an Interim Action Plan with funding of more than £350k to take forward events development until March 2022.
In the first two years of its operations the Dumfries and Galloway Major Festivals and Events Strategy 2018-2021, which is managed and delivered by Dumfries and Galloway Council:
• Made 28 grant awards to 19 different events projects
• Was directly responsible for close to 50,000 visitors being attracted to Dumfries and Galloway to attend the funded events (this does not include 1000s more we could not record visiting free to view events)
• Funded four events that generated more than £1m for the regional economy – Wigtown Book Festival (2018 and 2019), Spring Fling (2019), Skiffieworlds – the 2019 World Coastal Rowing Championships and Electric Fields 2018
• Attracted two World Championships to Dumfries and Galloway – Skiffieworlds and the International Ice Hockey Federation’s Women’s Under 18’s World Championship Division II Group A and the first Stage of the Tour of Britain 2019. The Galloway Hills Rally became the final Round of the British Rally Championship in 2019
• Created a new process to identify the best smaller scale events with the best chance of sustainable growth – the Regional Growth Events programme – the four events identified by this process and now receiving three year funding are Annan Harbour Festival, Castle Douglas Food Festival, D-Lux Festival of Light and NithRaid River Festival
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