Festival organisers look to Lancaster community for help securing their futures

Crowdfunding campaigns have been launched by the organisers of Light Up Lancaster, the Chinese New Year Festival and Festa Italia.

The Dukes also need backing for their planned first cinema tour while the Friends of Storey Gardens are crowdfunding for their dream of recreating the internationally renowned Tasting Garden artwork.

All organisations are hoping that their crowdfunding campaigns on Spacehive will also attract a contribution from Lancashire Culture and Sport Fund launched by Lancashire County Council last November.

County has allocated £500,000 a year to the fund to support community-led ideas for cultural and sporting activities meaning that organisations can receive up to £20,000 towards their fundraising targets.

Support for Light Up Lancaster is required most imminently as it is scheduled to go ahead across three nights from November 2-4. It is currently 58% towards its crowdfunding target of almost £40,000.

This free festival of light art illuminates the city’s heritage buildings, historic streets and squares with national and international installations never seen before in Lancashire.

The 2023 event also promises a street market, arts fair, workshops and other family friendly activities.

The Chinese New Year Festival, due to take place early in 2023, has set a target of just over £12,000.

This community-driven celebration of Chinese culture features a lion and dragon parade, nationally acclaimed Chinese performers, an exhibition, workshops and children’s activities as well as more than 500 Chinese lanterns adorning the city centre.

The third Lancaster festival hoping for crowdfunding support is Festa Italia, which also includes Lancaster International Film Festival.

Described as the biggest Italian festival in the north west, this free event showcases Italian cuisine and entertainment and sees super cars and bikes by Ferrari, Ducati, Lambretta and Vespa roar into town. It has set a target of almost £20,000 for its Crowdfunding campaign.

The Dukes is looking to bring new touring cinema to Lancashire if its aim to raise almost £49,000 is successful.

This new venture will see The Dukes cinema offering high quality screenings in community spaces across the county, especially in places that don’t currently have access to a cinema or where the distance to existing provision is too long.

The arts project which has set the highest crowdfunding target in Lancaster is the recreation of the Tasting Garden artwork at The Storey Garden which is hoping to raise more than £57,500.

This ambitious project, fronted by The Friends of The Storey Garden, aims to recreate an internationally renowned artwork, originally produced by acclaimed environmental artist, Mark Dion.

The first two fruit sculptures, the czar plum and swan’s egg pear, have already been installed and the remaining 19 would be carved in Portland stone and help to create a beautiful open community space for residents and tourists to enjoy. It would be the only freely accessible piece of Mark Dion’s public work in Europe.

Anyone wishing to support any of the Lancaster projects can find out more and donate at https://www.spacehive.com/movement/lancashire/projects