Dear Business Owner,

Lancaster Music Festival brought around 40-50% more people into Lancaster City Centre than in 2013. ATMs were running out of cash, bars out of beer and many venues posted their busiest day/s/weekends (in some cases week) ever.

Our headline stats are 36,000+ festival goers from Oct. 9th through Oct. 13th bringing in around £970,000 gross spend into the city.* Our production budget (still being calculated due to costs overruns) is around £27K of which £8K was BID funding. The proportion of outside visitors based on Facebook likes was 50%. Based on online surveys was 30%. Accommodation in the city appeared to be 100%.

However, we are in the red this year because we threw everything we could at the event to counter the current economic threats to our city. In order to help us get the sponsorship we need for 2015 we need feedback from Lancaster businesses like yours.

Please spend a little time to help us and answer as many of the following questions as you would like. Please note that we have come up with these questions independently.

Please feel free to contact the festival at info@lancastermusicfestival.com (attention Benjamin Ruth)


* These figures are based on known venue capacities and estimates in the outside concert areas multiplied by average individual spend at Lancaster art events derived from the Lancaster Arts Partnership commissioned economic impact assessment of 2011 corrected for inflation to 2014 using ONS published rates of inflation

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* 1. Did you benefit from increased trade during the 2014 music festival (Oct. 9-13th)

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* 2. If you benefited by how much did your trade increase compared to an “average” weekend

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* 3. The festival obtains significant funding from the Lancaster Business Improvement District and in the last two years was dependent on that funding to grow. Did you have an increase in trade that covered your businesses’ annual BID contribution during the festival weekend?

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* 4. If you were previously not in favour of Lancaster BID has the Lancaster Music Festival helped change your view of BID?

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* 5. In order to be sustainable Lancaster Music Festival still needs support from local businesses to continue in 2015. Are you interested in supporting the festival either through advertising or direct partnership and sponsoring?

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* 6. If yes to 5. please provide your business name, contact name and number/email:

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* 7. Do you have any constructive comments you would like to make to the Lancaster Music Festival team?

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