Festival appeal after Arts Council funding blow

The team behind Cheltenham Paint Festival has appealed for help, after it failed to get Arts Council funding.

Featuring dozens of artists, the annual event is due to take place across the town in July.

The 2023 event was initially cancelled due to lack of funds but went ahead after a crowdfunding effort.

Organisers claim they had been encouraged by Arts Council of England to apply for funding after a site visit from a regional director of the organisation.

Speaking to BBC Radio Gloucestershire, festival founder Andy Davies said it was "disappointing".

"I accept there's a process and it's hard times, and an increasingly larger amount of people are applying for an increasingly smaller amount of money.

"But what's galling is, having looked at the project it does support, is they are ticketed, and gated, they have funds coming in.

"As a free arts festival, we don't have a gate, we can't charge people to get in to the town and it's very difficult to run without that sort of resource."

Mr Davies said it appears to be a common theme when he speaks to other festival directors, adding that Cheltenham has the appearance of being affluent, which he feels worked against him.

"If we don't get any more money, it'll be a damp squip and a small event... it's the big walls which we're really trying to get funding for," he concluded.

Over the weekend, about £800 was raised for the event thanks to public donations, according to a post on the event's Facebook page.

In a statement, the Arts Council said: "We're pleased to have supported Cheltenham Paint Festival on a number of occasions in the past, but The National Lottery Project Grants programme is highly competitive and regrettably, there are always many more good applications than the Arts Council can fund.

"While the Festival's most recent application was unsuccessful, we welcome future submissions and remain in close contact with cultural stakeholders in the area."