Creating a Buzz for The Bath Festival

The Bath Festival has teamed up with Bath BID (Bath Business Improvement District) to create a citywide buzz ahead of the arts festival, which runs from Friday 13 to Saturday 21 May and attracts day and overnight visitors to Bath.

The aim is to create a highly visible festival presence in the city, collaborating with local businesses to encourage footfall in stores, increase sales and ensure that everyone knows there’s a festival happening.

How you can get involved

DISPLAY A FESTIVAL DECAL IN YOUR WINDOW

Brighten up your window and support The Bath Festival by displaying one of our beautifully designed window decals! They peel on and off with no fuss and no mess.

To get a decal email: [email protected]

FESTIVAL OFFERS

Entice people to visit your business during the festival by creating an exclusive offer. This might be a festival cocktail or a cake, or perhaps you’d like to offer a discount for anyone who has come to the city for a concert or a talk – it’s up to you. The Bath Festival has a dedicated page on its website to promote sales and offers leading up to and during the festival. The festival will promote this offers page regularly on its extensive social media channels and its e-newsletter, which has a mailing list of over 29,000 people. In turn, the festival is asking

businesses to use its logo to promote the festival offers on their own marketing channels. Upload your offer: bathfestivals.org.uk/the-bath-festival/upload-offer

WINDOW DRESSING COMPETITION

The annual Bath Festival Window Dressing Competition is back! Catch the eye of passers-by and draw attention to your business by creating a window display based on a festival theme. Let your imagination run wild! All window displays will need to be in place by Thursday 5 May. The displays will be judged before the festival and the award-winning window will receive a prize of festival tickets, books, £100 Minuteman Press voucher and more! All who enter will receive four free tickets to festival event or events of their choice (up to the value of £25 per ticket) as a thank you for taking part.

To enter the competition email: [email protected] by the end of April

WHAT THE FESTIVAL BRINGS TO BATH

The city really comes to life at festival time as audiences move between some of the city’s beautiful historic buildings, including Bath Abbey, The Assembly Rooms, The Forum and St Swithin’s Church. There will be concerts, talks, gigs, comedy and a host of stars descending on Bath, reinforcing its reputation as a vibrant cultural city.

The festival will open with the traditional Party in the City on Friday 13 May, offering dozens of free live music events in city venues for an evening of celebration which attracts tens of thousands of visitors. There will also be a Festival Hub set up in Queen Square over the weekend of Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 May, offering free events, including activities and music for families from 11am each day.

All these create great opportunities for city centre businesses to attract customers.

Allison Herbert, CEO of The Bath BID said: “The Bath BID is delighted to be supporting The Bath Festival by sponsoring Party in the City. The celebration is a great event for the local community, and we hope to see lots of venues taking part this year. We’ll be promoting the festival through our Welcome to Bath website, where visitors to the city can browse special offers and events to attend as part of the celebration.”

The official bookseller is the independent Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights and the festival is supported by sponsors, including Bath Recreation, Bath Spa University, Bath BID, Wessex Water and The Royal High School, its patrons and members and an invaluable army of volunteers, without who the festival would not happen.

Find out what’s on at this year’s festival, visit: thebathfestival.org.uk