With the best will in the world, when attempting to make Shambala more inclusive, there’s a massive elephant in the room and that elephant is made of pound coins. Festivals aren’t cheap – especially weekend camping ones. They aren’t cheap to produce and they aren’t cheap to attend.
Everybody should have access to culture – to life-changing experiences, live music, art, creativity, connection and celebration. The festival industry as a whole has an inclusivity problem because all too often, festivals are totally out of reach to people on low incomes. Saving for a festival ticket will never be a priority when you can’t pay your rent or put food on the table at home.
We’ve been exploring heaps of options as to how we can open up our events to those who are simply priced out. For us it’s not as simple as offering cut price tickets for folks on low incomes, because the ticket price is just the beginning. There’s the travel, the camping equipment, the food and drink, it all adds up. If we’re serious about this, we need to provide more.
This year, we are keen to raise a pot of funds, to kick start this journey and help share the love in 2023 and beyond. We’ll work with organisations local to our site to identify folks who’d love to join the party but haven’t been able to do so, due to financial pressures (rather than a ticket type that is available for public access).
Funds raised will be held securely in The Kambe Foundation – we will look to match any funds raised and the entirety of these funds will be ring fenced to gift and support festival access packages, from tents to travel to food and drink. There will be various different ways to do this over the next year, but here’s how we’re kicking things off…
Paying it forwards at the bar!
At all of our main bars, our trusty bar staff will be offering YOU lovely humans the chance to donate towards this fund whilst you’re getting your drinks in. We know times are hard for lots of people so we promise not to badger you too much or put any pressure on you (and it is of course absolutely fine to say no!).
Our staff will offer you the option to add £1, £3 or £5 to your round. Even if you can only spare a quid, every little really does help, and will go towards helping those who have never even been able to consider attending a festival enjoy the magic, culture and creativity of our Adventures In Utopia.
Guest ticket donations
Every year, we ask anybody attending the festival as an artist guest or industry guest to pay a £30 donation to one of our charity partners. In 2022 however, these donations will be added to the Pay It Forward pot in their entirety.
This is just the beginning…
We’ve got more ideas up our sleeves to get this flying, from fundraisers to further initiatives tied into our 2023 ticket release, so keep an eye out.
The Shambala community is amazing. By pulling together, we have the power to make a real difference, break down barriers and share the love. x