VELOCITY festival “a wonderful initiative”
You’ve experienced the art, now for the stats
We’ve been collecting and collating feedback from all our audience members, artists and partners for this autumn’s VELOCITY festival of digital culture, and we’ve got some things we’re glad to shout about.
Comments from audience members about VELOCITY have included "wonderful opportunity to see arts here in the North West" and "superb".
In total, over 20 000 people visited and took part in VELOCITY’s events, exhibitions and activities, and over 6000 people have engaged with VELOCITY’s online projects to date, with that figure rising every day. You can check out the VELOCITY microsite at www.folly.co.uk/velocity
folly also worked with 18 partners, and 61 artists from as far afield as China, Japan and the USA.
We were delighted to find that 100% of people asked rated the variety of events, customer care and interactive nature of the projects as good or very good.
VELOCITY drew attention to the work of folly, and was successful in acting as our key annual event for profile raising and attracting new audiences to art and technology: over 50% of audiences surveyed had never attended a folly event before and over 60% of the audience had travelled over 25 miles to attend. Nearly 70% of the people asked said that the festival gave them a new appreciation of what the Morecambe Bay area could offer.
In total, VELOCITY’s press and radio exposure reached up to 600 000 people: five times the number of the f.city festival last year, and that’s not including the 1.2million readership of Virgin Trains’ Hotline magazine. Press coverage totalled over 1.5 square metres of free printed press exposure.
folly’s festival did of course also have a strong online presence, with the festival featured on over 3 dozen different websites. One of folly’s main promotion methods was a generous A2-sized fold-out brochure, which reached 18 000 people, and you can reminisce here!
But of course the feedback we value most is direct from our audience. Quotes from audience members included:
> "Velocity brochure (and programme) superb!!"
> "This show is a delight - a real mix of aesthetics and entertainment. The whole concept of velocity is a wonderful idea - I hope folly repeats it."
> "An excellent experience for a varied audience. I would wish to attend future events and would have much higher expectations having seen works today"
> "Interactive exhibits make art come to life"
> "Fantastic images!"
> "I thought it was a great success and a credit to all involved. I hope it gets the recognition it deserves."
Reviewer Catherine Sadler wrote about the festival: "The fascination with and pleasure in a lot of the artwork is found in the conflation and juxtaposition of the digital and the mechanical, the past and the present, and the human interaction with both. And, as with f.city, the work in Velocity successfully combines elements of seriousness and play."
We’d like to take this opportunity to thank everybody who was involved with VELOCITY, from the artists and partners, to our stakeholders and funders, and most of all our audience. We look forward to another year of digital art, and hope you’ll come along for the ride!
VELOCITY has been funded by Arts Council England and the Arts Council England Lottery Fund, Cornerhouse, Lancashire County Council, Northern Rock Foundation, Northwest Regional Development Agency, Signposts, Urban Screens and West Lakes Renaissance.
