Festival organiser and promoter wanted for Dorchester Walking Festival 2024

• Objective:
  • Bring new tourists into Dorchester and generate visitor spend in the town.
  • To create an inclusive, varied and exciting walking festival that celebrates Dorchester’s History and life today (food and drink, culture, arts etc)
• Location: The primary site for festival should be the town (this includes Poundbury). However, Dorchester also has wonderful surrounding countryside within easy walking distance that should be included in the festival. These are owned by other landowners but we can liaise with them to hold events on them.
• Who: Tender is open to anyone with events management and communications experience.
• Budget: £2,800 (including development, delivery, travel, evaluation and expenses). Printing costs will be covered by the Tourism Partnership and sponsorship acquisition.
• Timescale: Festival to be delivered 11^th – 19^th May 2024, Evaluation completed by end of August ready for presentation back to Tourism Partnership in September.

Commission Outline

We would like the successful applicant to work with Dorchester Tourism Development Officer and Tourism Partnership to coordinate the 2024 Festival. Dorchester Town Council and partners will be able to help with contacts for walk leaders, permissions and more.

The successful tenderer will be expected to pull together a full risk assessment for the event that they design and deliver.

We are looking for a creative Festival Coordinator who is able to create an exciting and inclusive festival way. The successful applicant needs to be able to demonstrate the following skills:

• Creativity in devising inclusive and exciting events
• Excellent communication skills
• Event management
• Marketing and promoting events
• Budget Management
• Evaluation

We expect the successful applicant to:

• Devise the festival with Tourism Development Officer to include at least 30 walks
• Maintain professional and regular communication with partners, walk leaders and activity providers throughout
• Promote the festival nationally as a priority and then locally
• Be responsible for health and safety during the festival (Walk leaders will be required to have their own public liability insurance and carry out their own risk assessments so the risk is limited)
• Have their own public liability insurance (if possible – this can be covered by Dorchester Town Council if needed)
• Ensure the environmental impact of the festival is as minimal as possible
• Ensure the festival is inclusive
• Be present whilst the festival is running to ensure event is running smoothly (some Dorchester Town Council staff will also be able to be present to support at events).
• Get feedback from attendees, walk leaders and local businesses and measure attendance. Use data gathered and quotes from partners to create an evaluation report for the festival. Tourism Partnership would like access to raw feedback data as well as report.

We expect the successful applicant to achieve the following target outcomes:

• Excellent feedback from walk leaders and attendees after the event.
• Businesses in Dorchester see knock on benefits of increased trade and footfall during the festival.
• 1/3 of attendees to the festival not living in Dorchester.
• Local and national media coverage for Dorchester achieved.

What we can provide:

As this is not the first time that the event has been held, the Dorchester Tourism Development Officer can support the successful tenderer with the following:

• Lessons learnt from last years festival.
• Assistance in recruiting walk leaders.
• Printing.
• Use of Discover Dorchester social media channels and website for promotion.
• Template evaluation reports, feedback forms, risk assessment etc. if required.