I’ve been working with Greenbelt Festival as a comms consultant since 2019. Working freelance on a retained basis each month, I’m effectively their in-house copywriter and concept creative, working to support their comms officer and creative director. I help out all year round on everything from social copy to seasonal ticket campaigns to on-site festival comms.

A festival that’s almost as old as Glastonbury, Greenbelt fuses artistry, activism and belief into a late summer shindig that plays with and subverts expectations. It’s a Christian festival that is deeply progressive, one that has programmed Pussy Riot’s punk protest alongside Christian drag artists alongside traditional Palestinian folk musicians alongside enthusiastic beer-fuelled hymn-singing. 

A strapline to believe in

One of my first jobs when working with the team was to look at its positioning. To help the festival celebrate its half-century of history in a way that felt authentic to its multiple generations of faithful ‘Greenbelters’ while also feeling invitational to brand new, curious festivalgoers.

Working with the team we created Somewhere to Believe In, a brand new strapline that we could stretch across the whole festival. Building in really valuable feedback from the team (and their trustees) I wrote a ‘festival manifesto’ to accompany it (and demonstrate the flexibility of the ‘Somewhere to…’ positioning), which was shared via the festival’s social media channels where it got a really warm welcome.

The result is below. The best part of the process was seeing the reaction of Greenbelters of all stripes. Their response was so positive that the festival ended up selling merchandise with the strapline on. Who doesn’t want to see their words on a mug or a tea towel or tee-shirt? Or an actual hill? (see below). And since then we have followed up on belief with a companion piece about belonging. You can read them both here.

The importance of a good email newsletter

Since then we’ve handled pretty much everything the world can throw at independent, creative festivals. The communications around COVID that saw every festival have to completely rethink their business.

The cost of living crisis saw us create - and communicate - a brand new pay-what-you-can ticketing model that fitted beautifully with the festival’s ethos. And I write a festival email that goes to more than 15,000 subscribers. Sent weekly as we near the festival, Dispatches has an average open rate in 2024 above 40%.

As social platforms come and go, and can change their metrics and criteria overnight, having an owned platform with both good reach and engagement is invaluable.