Case Study: Creating community in a digital world The start of 2021 saw us in another national lockdown resulting in our 2021 Festival moving entirely online, presenting us with sudden and unexpected challenges that we have not had to navigate before. How do we produce a festival online that has the energy and vibrancy of our physical festival, and how do we support our regular communities? The Spark Festival has a strong representation from audiences that we see as our creative friends, co-collaborators and creative champions, statically they are seen to have a low engagement within the arts - the 2020 festival had a 36% audience share of what the Audience Agency Spectrum describe as low engaged visitors. We had to find new ways to reach our regular schools, families, and communities and ways to keep us connected and creative together online. This meant adapting a programme that had planned live pop-up performances on families doorsteps, in parks and school playgrounds and storytelling in shops and cafes to one family at a time to create a digital space that people could enjoy and connect with each other. We programmed a full festival of 56 live performances, 19 workshops and 7 festival shows to watch on demand and we extended the dates of the festival from 7 to 13 days to give families the opportunities to engage over half term. Sense of Occasion Families were invited to turn their homes into a festival site with a social media competition to share images of their homemade bunting, indoor festival tents, costumes and displays. Audiences were encouraged to share pictures and videos of their own creativity to share in an online gallery of festival activity - thesparkarts.co.uk/festival/2021gallery. The Spark Artists in Residence, Sian Watson Taylor and David Stickman Higgins, and the magnificent families from St Barnabas and Pork Pie Libraries, celebrated The Spark Festival with rays of cultural sunlight at home, and in their doorways! Key 'ingredients' for making storytelling stages and creating a sparkling Festival atmosphere at home, were posted through the letterboxes of our families and nursery partners (imagine paper, crayons, fabric, paints, sponges, pots, pans, feathers, sticky tapes and more!) Livestreamed "zoom room" interactive sessions with Sian and Dave were supported with pre-recorded story telling adventures, each story brought to life through a magical mix of rhythms and beats, bursting with sounds, words and the colours of sunshine and celebration! Regular phone and WhatsApp contact was made with the families to give everyone confidence in using the technology to access the online sessions and to book tickets for other festival shows. “For yesterday, today and tomorrow, there’s simply not enough words to say how much we appreciate you, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for going above and beyond…. We love your stories and The Spark.”  Parent, Small Wonders project Feb 21  “It's the most fun they had over zoom during the whole of lockdown! We both really enjoyed it - it definitely had the feel-good factor which is much needed right now!” Parent,

Small Wonders project Feb 21 

The Spark Festival 8 - 20 February 2021

Parcels of Creativity Connecting the digital and physical worlds across the festival helped to break down barriers. In total almost 1,000 physical ‘creative packs’ were circulated for 5 festival events Doorway to the Festival - storytelling festival packs Potato Needs a Bath - party packs sent to 482 home school pupils Tribe (DIY) - posters and tickets were posted to individuals to put up at home Secret Stories - messages of hope and event posters Braunstone Festival Party - party packs Shared Experiences Leicester’s lockdown experience has been tough and there was a need to provide something outside of people’s online routine, something for families to experience together. Live elements and workshops provided audiences with a new type of online activity, but more important, somewhere where people could get together virtually and enjoy being in the same space as other families, watching each other as well as the performers. Sofa Acrobatics by Mimbre saw families connecting, trying out their own routines and inspiring each other. At Potato Needs A Bath, attendees shared the experience with family and friends in different parts of the country by arranging to be online at the same date and time for a ‘much needed’ shared experience. “The performance was a great mood booster. It gave us some much-needed light-hearted fun and escapism. It was a chance to be silly together.” Parent, Potato Needs A Bath 2021

Collaborative Creativity We immersed ourselves into the heart of the Belgrave community, the golden mile of Leicester, via interactive zoom conversations with local families. With a brief to co-curate and co-create festival activity we provided families with purposeful engagement, so they fully engaged with sessions and connected with artists and performers, giving us the opportunity to listen to what the families wanted and to make it happen. Families shared their personal histories and their family journeys which ultimately lead to Leicester. These incredible stories formed two sets of stories that were live streamed direct to audiences over Zoom, by professional actors. Families from Belgrave were joined at these performances by family members in India and Dubai as well as audiences locally and nationally. “It was like we gave all the jigsaw pieces and they came together to make a beautiful picture.” Secret Stories participant Unique Opportunity Overall, the festival reached over 6,000 children and families. We are, of course, excited at the thoughts of meeting our audiences face to face and heading back into schools and venues across the city for the 2022 Festival, but we are also excited at using the learning from this unique festival and the experiences that have expanded our digital horizons. For more information about The Spark Arts for Children visit thesparkarts.co.uk

thesparkarts.co.uk