Bristol Pride awarded funding from the Cultural Recovery Fund to support arts and culture through the pandemic.
We have been awarded £50,273 as part of the Government’s £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund (CRF) to help face the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic and to ensure they have a sustainable future, the Culture Secretary has announced today.
We are one of 588 cultural and creative organisations across the country receiving urgently needed support – with £76 million of investment announced today. This follows £257 million awarded earlier in the week to 1,385 organisations, also from the Culture Recovery Fund grants programme being administered by Arts Council England on behalf of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Further rounds of funding in the cultural and heritage sector are due to be announced over the coming weeks.
As an organisation that relies on 90% of our year-round funding from our annual festival, Covid-19 has had a massive impact on us, and our colleagues in the events sector. This funding will allow us to keep running and support us to keep supporting others in the sector and will allow us to engage our events management and health and safety specialists to help us start to explore and make the plans for our 2021 event delivery.
Eve Russel, Festival Director said:
Bristol Pride is a very special and culturally significant event and is one of the largest festivals to take place in Bristol, bringing hundreds and thousands of pounds into the local economy. We are one of the largest Pride events in the UK and last year 40,000 people attended the festival on the downs where we engaged over 150 artists 250 volunteers and 200 crew. We also programme 2 weeks of events across the city using a range of the arts to showcase and celebrate our community. We are thankful for this funding to help us to continue to be a shining beacon of equality in the city.
Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said:
“This is more vital funding to protect cultural gems across the country, save jobs and prepare the arts to bounce back. Through Arts Council England we are delivering the biggest ever investment in the arts in record time. Hundreds of millions of pounds are already making their way to thousands of organisations.
“These awards build on our commitment to be here for culture in every part of the country.”
Chair, Arts Council England, Sir Nicholas Serota, said:
“Culture is an essential part of life across the country, helping to support people’s wellbeing through creativity and self-expression, bringing communities together, and fuelling our world class creative industries.
“This latest set of awards from the Culture Recovery Fund builds on those announced recently and will help hundreds of organisations to survive the next few months, ensuring that the cultural sector can bounce back after the crisis. We will continue doing everything we can to support artists and cultural and creative organisations, with further funding to be announced in the coming weeks.”
