It’s now June (already?), meaning it’s been a few weeks since Sheffield Archaeology in the City’s 2019 Woodland Heritage Festival, a public engagement day at Ecclesall Woods which I was lucky and crazy enough to organise. This was my first time ever managing any event, and although I had the backing of four previous festivals and a great AITC team, I inevitably learned so much on the job about public engagement in heritage and how to manage an event of this scale. I thought it was worth sharing some of that knowledge with you. So, here are my 5 top tips for putting on your own heritage festival:
1. Find your team
The first step is not to do it alone. Archaeology in the City is a postgrad-led group, so I had a lovely team of PhD students and some keen volunteers, all wanting to help out. Assign roles so that you share the workload, and discuss everything; conversation leads to much more creative ideas.
Avengers Assemble (c) Katie Libby
2. Find a location
Having a flexible venue that fits the kind of festival you want to run is vital. The J G Graves Discovery Centre is great for us because it has both indoor and outdoor space, which lets us run different kinds of activities with different needs, as well as having cafe/toilet/first aid/handwashing facilities. Also, talk to their staff throughout the organisation process, as they likely know the site better than you and are probably happy to help. Also, using local businesses with responsible practices helps them to grow.
3. Use your contacts
One of the most enriching parts of the festival for me was bringing in community groups to share their knowledge and passion for local heritage. They will appreciate the chance to tell people about their work and recruit new members, and you get to fill your festival full of new activities. Also, contacts at the university and local organisations, especially museums, were invaluable for advice and ideas. Turns out that no-one in heritage is going to be negative when you ask for some help creating a heritage event (the more you know).
Cave painting, Palaeolithic poster-paint style (c) Katie Libby
4. Mix it up
From four years of previous festivals, we had a good range of pre-planned activities to base our day on, as well as some new ideas. We found aiming across the board, seeking to entertain children, babies, families, older people, and even bemused dogwalkers, was the best way to ensure we got our heritage-positive message out to different people. Activities that worked well included a live smelting experience, drop-in osteology and zooarchaeology workshops, re-enactment, coil-pot making, and historic tours of the woodland. Having lots of vibrant interactive events also meant that the ones that didn’t work so well didn’t matter as much.
5. Feedback
Guess who was so stressed about the logistics she nearly forgot to record and reflect on people’s experiences, or even enjoy herself? I think it’s so easy to forget to take on feedback, engage with people during the day, and build on your knowledge base for following events, hence this blogpost!
Our incredible smelting team actually casted copper and bronze objects using a reconstructed furnace & moulds!!! (c) Katie Libby
Want to know more about the Woodland Heritage Festival? Check out the Archaeology in the City webpages, and look out for our event roundup through the University of Sheffield soon. Also, drop me a message for more detailed information & support, or send me feedback! 🙂
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