AIF's initiatives have covered issues such as the danger of using legal highs, the economic impact of independent festivals, and more recently, sexual safety at festivals and single use plastics.
Such campaigns position independent festivals at the forefront of industry, leading on important audience facing issues.
An updated version of our 2017 Safer Spaces at Festivals campaign, which is aimed at tackling sexual violence at festivals. Over 90 UK festivals committed to an updated Charter of Best Practice developed with input and guidance from experts.
This consumer-facing campaign was launched on May 8th 2019, with a core message of reuse aimed at inspiring festival-goers to ‘Take Your Tent Home’, ‘Say No To Single Use’ in advance of festival season.
A digital campaign launched to coincide with Earth Day on Sunday April 22nd 2018. For 24 hours, AIF member festival websites were ‘wrapped in plastic’ for 24 hours to raise awareness of single use plastic. In addition, all participating festivals committed to banning the use of plastic straws on-site in 2018 as a minimum first step and pledged to eliminate all single-use plastic at their events by 2021.
To raise greater awareness about sexual violence across everyone from audiences to artists to staff and volunteers – and to spread some key messages around “consent”, about “not being a bystander” and to take a “zero tolerance” approach to all forms of sexual assault.
Access Starts Online launched at the Festival Congress in 2015 as a partnership with Attitude Is Everything.
The 'Fair Play For Festivals' agreement was launched at the Festival Congress 2015 in partnership with The MU (Musicians Union).
Working with expert drug charities and services, the AIF planned and organised a coordinated blackout of festival websites to raise awareness of legal highs on 05/05. The campaign involved 26 festivals and gained national media from the likes of BBC, Sky News and The Guardian, reaching 9 million people through websites and twitter.
Festivals organisers can now use a free online tool to check their energy performance in less than a minute. Supported by AIF and produced by not for profit industry think-do tank Powerful Thinking, this simple tool asks a series of questions and provides the user with an energy rating based on industry benchmarks.