Culture and creativity should be explored and enjoyed by all. As a family-friendly festival, we believe that music and the arts are intergenerational activities that should have no barriers to access, irrespective of gender or ability/disability.
In 2024 we're introducing 2 more accessible venues: Shrewsbury Square and St. Mary's Church plus fully covered tent stage at Shrewsbury Castle.
In the last two years we've operated on a tiny budget, with a contribution from Shrewsbury BID in 2022 of £2,000 and a £5,000 in 2023. Despite this we've managed to break footfall records in Shrewsbury and smash bar taking records two years running across the bars in town (that's taking into consideration a 50% increase in the number of venues and a 60% increase in artists!)
In the first year LOOPFEST didn't ask for financial support from the venues hosting events. In 2023 venues contributed financially to LOOPFEST. We'd like to thank them for their support.
We're now paying a fair rate to the engineers (although we are still relying on the kind support of places like Pro Audio Services for the loan of equipment) and some of the pro engineers would normally go out for a lot more. We are very lucky to have their company.
Artists fees are a massive problem. We always wanted to pay a fair fee to our artists by 2024. In 2023 we offered a nominal fee, but that's not good enough. Fair fees is a good place to get to. Obviously the more acts you book, the higher the costs. If we wanted to expand to 200 acts over a weekend, the cost could be around £15,000 and of course, engineer costs will also double/triple.
Then there's marketing costs. Those were around £5,000 (including the programme). Time is not factored in here. I spent around 3 months planning.
So we have a target of at least £25-30,000.
Our goal is not to raise all this at once, but to give us an opportunity to have some money in the bank to cover the following years. LOOPFEST directors are currently bankrolling the event.
So please give what you can, and help this festival to achieve new heights in 2024.
Jimmy - Director