Big Ideas By The Sea 2022 was held over two weeks from the 20th May until the 3rd June 2022 and was held in various venues right across the town including the Old Parcels Office, St Mary’s Church and the Market Hall that featured the Eliza Carthy concert and Minecraft event. A big thank you to all the businesses in the Market Hall who helped to promote these and help make all the activities such a success.
This year the festival had a range of events and activities that aimed to appeal to a wider sector of the community. Including themes and activities like the environment, a brass band, community theatre groups and live internet music performance across the world, a major objective was to engage children in the events. This was achieved through cooperation and partnership with a National Literacy Trust, Scarborough Archaeological and Historical Society, KrashLabs, and GCHQ. These events proved successful in attracting large a number of children who visited with parents or with schoolteachers and participated in the Big Dig during class time. Engaging with groups like the Big Stitch who work with people from Holmfirth and Leeds to make over 150 panels for the large quilt, resulted in visits to the festival from all over the region.
Scarborough’s Big Dig is always a huge success and consisted of an excavation area of 75m2, a ground-probing radar survey (GPR) of interior and exterior areas of St Mary’s Church, and an integrated programme of community engagement. This was followed by the Big Draw which took place at St Mary’s Church over a three-day period. The idea was to make a collaboration of small drawings in response to the artefacts found from the archaeological dig. Overall 463 small drawings were collected, with an estimated footfall over the three days of between 250-300 people.
Here are some more of the headline achievements of the 2022 event:
- 730 Ticket sales/visitors to speaker events
- 881Big Dig Reach/participation
- 300 reach/participation for the Big Draw
- 150 participations in the Big Stitch
- 120 children/parents KrashLabs Minecraft at the Market Hall
- 47 speakers and performers
- 68 volunteers/Big Stitch/St Marys Church/Big Dig/Festival/Market Hall
- 5 Sell out events to include musician Eliza Carthy and poet Ian McMillan
- 63 000 reach Facebook reach
- Media coverage on BBC Radio York (three times), Radio Scarborough, Coast and Country Radio, Scarborough Evening News and Yorkshire Post
- 1586 Facebook followers
- Partners/sponsors YorkshireCoast BID, Anglo American, Scarborough Borough Council, TransPennine Express, Community Lottery, National Heritage LotteryFund, National Literacy Trust,St Mary’s Church, Old Parcels Office and Scarborough Archaeological and Historical Society
- Visitors from all over the UK, North of England and Yorkshire region to include London, Sheffield, Lake District, York, Holmfirth, Manchester, Derby, Hull, Newcastle, Stockport and Malton
We look forward to hearing the plans for how this successful festival will continue to grow in 2023.
