Volunteer by 5 June for Lytham Festival

On Friday 7th August – Sunday 9th August, The Festival of Stories will transform the playing fields at Park View 4U in Lytham to bring imaginative storytelling and story making events, activities and experiences for the whole family. Commissioned by Lytham Festival and produced by Fable Arts CIC, The Festival of Stories is not to be missed.

We've received a fantastic response to our volunteer call out already, and are looking for even more enthusiastic people to help bring The Festival of Stories to life. The deadline for applications has been extended to Friday 5th June.

The Role

As a Storymaker, you will work with our core production team to create, run and promote the event and help to keep all of our visitors safe and happy. Roles in the following teams are up for grabs:

Strand Teams

We are looking for a team of three to run each of our six Programme Strands: A Strand Team Coordinator and two Strand Team Assistants.

During ‘Set Up Week’, you’ll be helping to decorate and set up your Strand area where you will be based throughout the weekend, making sure that the programming there goes smoothly. You’ll be liaising with performers and, at times, assisting them, making sure that the area is set up for all of the programming activities. As a team, you’ll be the point of contact for performers and artists, sponsors and festival goers in your area.

We’re looking for really committed, enthusiastic, creative people, who want to take on the challenge of becoming the eyes and ears of an area. This is a great opportunity for anyone interested in getting into arts or events management to get real, on the ground, responsibility at a large scale arts event.

Creative Programme Team

Delivering some of our in house activities, you might find yourself in an immersive performance role as you lead people into and out of events, or supporting a craft activity, helping festival goers to collate the festival newspaper, or painting faces. This will be a really creative and varied role, with very different events taking place over the weekend in all of the different areas.

We’re looking for energetic and creative people to help generate excitement and atmosphere around the Festival site. This team would particularly suit people keen to become an artistic or theatre practitioner.

Design Team

Working with our Set Designers to design and build props installations and set pieces and dress of the festival site you will help to create an environment where imagination rules, where families are transported out of their day to day lives into somewhere quite extraordinary. People applying for this team will be required to take part in ‘Making Workshops’ led by our Set Designers and to be available during ‘Set Up Week’ to help dress the site.

We’re looking for practical and creative people who are either already working as artistic practitioners, or who are keen to develop their artistic practice skills and experience.

Information Team

Working from the Information Tent, you’ll be keeping an overall eye on the Festival, and creating a central hub where festival goers know they can find the answers to their many questions. Strand teams will come to you with programme changes and other information about their areas, so that there is a central point of information about everything.

This team will particularly suit people looking for experience in arts and event administration. If you’re never happier than with a clipboard in your hand, creating order from chaos, this may be the role for you.

Festival Support Team

From helping performers move their gear, to supporting the information team and general stewarding, these roles would particularly suit people looking for their first experience of working at a large arts event. During set up, the festival support team will get the chance to help to dress the site, install art installations and generally help to create our festival wonderland.

Marketing Team

If you know how to tweet, blog, Instagram, or Youtube, we want to hear from you. We’re looking for a small team of arts enthusiasts to get people talking about the Festival and generate an online buzz about the Festival as it happens.

What’s Involved

Whichever team you apply for, we’ll need you to commit to all three Festival days as well as a programme of training and workshop sessions to be held at Park View 4U in the run up to the event.

All of our teams are involved in Set Up Week- starting on Friday 31st July 2015. In this week you’ll really get to see how a festival logistically really gets off the ground, you’ll be painting, moving props and fine tuning your festival programme knowledge.

The Rewards

In return for hard work and commitment you’ll meet like-minded new people, learn from professional artists and performers, get involved in a worthwhile cause, learn about arts event management and add to your CV. You’ll also be well fed throughout your time on site during the festival with regular breaks and hot meals provided. What’s not to like?!

How To Apply

To apply to become a Storymaker, please register your interest with our Volunteer Co-Ordinator, Sally Edmundson at [email protected]. Sally will then send you an application form to fill in. All completed applications should be returned to Sally by Friday 5th June 2015.

Keep up to speed with all things Festival of Stories via @fablearts on Twitter and Facebook, or join the conversation using ‪#‎FestivalofStories

Volunteers have to be 16 or over.