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Thank you for helping to #SaveVAULT Festival!

DONATIONS UPDATE

£8, 620.00 via GIvey £15, 000.00 via private donations

TOTAL - £23, 620.00

Following its triumphant return for the first time in three years having battled to survive through cancellations and postponements, VAULT Festival has been dealt the devastating blow of being told by its landlord, The Vaults, that it must find a new home for future festivals as the venue is instead looking at other more commercial projects. This decision leaves VAULT Festival without a home for 2024 and beyond and poses a significant threat to our survival and to the wider creative industry.

Over the past 11 years, VAULT Festival has delivered over 3,000 bold and brilliant shows to more than 400,000 audience members. The festival is recognised for being vitally important to the live performance landscape of the UK, has helped launch the careers of thousands of artists from underrepresented backgrounds, who otherwise may not have had access to creative opportunities, and has had a significant positive impact on local businesses.

Whilst our journey at our current home is coming to an end, we’re determined to not let this be the end. But we need your help to #SaveVAULT.

We’ve launched the #SaveVAULT campaign with the goal of both raising £150,000 by the end of 2023’s festival (19th March) and to help us find and secure a new home for the festival.

The funds raised will support the organisation’s survival during this period of significant transition, be allocated to the cost of finding and securing a new home for the festival, and once found, help make that new home accessible to all.

If you can, please donate and Gift Aid your donation if you’re eligible.

With love and gratitude, The VAULT Festival team

✹ HOW WILL THE MONEY BE SPENT? ✹

It takes 12 months to plan a VAULT Festival of the scale it is right now, and that’s at the best of times when we know the venue we’ll be working in. So we already know that whatever happens in Spring 2024 will have to be a vastly smaller, experimental version of the festival whilst we work to transition to a longer term home for 2025 and beyond. That means we’ll be without meaningful income for up to 18 months, possibly/probably longer.

The last three years of the pandemic have also hit our finances and reserves hard with a postponement in 2021 followed by a cancellation in 2022.

It’s no exaggeration to say we wouldn’t still be here without the pandemic-relief funds that were available during that time. Those funds are obviously no longer available, so our ability to survive through the next period is hanging by a thread.

This news is the equivalent of being kicked whilst we’re down. But we’re determined to make sure this isn’t the end. We’ll spend the money raised on:

✹ £122,625 - Covers 50% of our staff salaries & social security costs to keep our current team of ten staff employed for 9 months. This is half of the cost of half of the time we’ll be without meaningful income but we’re working on other fundraising methods (grants, trusts, corporate sponsors, and earned income) to meet the rest of these costs. We know if we shrink and lose staff, our chances of survival reduce even further.

✹ £7,000 - Covers 50% of overheads (heating, utilities, broadband, desk space etc) so we have a space to work from for 9 months. Again this is half of the cost of half of the time we’ll be without meaningful income but we’re working on other fundraising methods as above.

✹ £12,000 - Agent and legal fees for finding & securing a new home.

✹ £9,000 - Feasibility studies, costings, drawings, & planning consultations for new home. Engaging creative freelancers to work with us to create plans and designs for our new venue.

✹ TOTAL £150,625 ✹

We’re a not-for-profit registered charity, so every pound raised will be spent on delivering our mission of keeping VAULT Festival alive.

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