Swaledale Festival covers a huge area in which there is a small population. This makes raising much-needed sponsorship tricky - very different from a city festival, for example, which might have thousands of businesses (potential sponsors) on its doorstep.
We are fortunate, therefore, to have some loyal corporate sponsors who have supported us for many years, and with whom it is our privilege to work:
Sherwoods of Darlington, the well-respected Vauxhall main dealership, has, for well over a decade, provided all those vans and cars that you see travelling round the Dales, emblazoned with our logo, carrying staging, display boards, lighting, sound equipment, chairs, instruments and performers.
T & R Theakston Ltd, brewers of fine Yorkshire ales, has generously sponsored one of our major concerts each year for well over a decade.
The Bridge Inn, Grinton, is not only a generous sponsor but also, to most people, the Festival hub - situated, as it is, directly opposite St. Andrew’s Church - our principal venue.
Millgate House B&B in Richmond is deserving of a grander title than ‘B&B’, offering stunning decor, sumptuous rooms, superb breakfasts and an amazing garden. Those Festival artists who are lucky enough to stay there are always delighted.
The Burgoyne Hotel in Reeth has supported the Festival by offering superb guest rooms for artists and hosting an annual poetry event. The hotel has also provided sandwiches for our artists for several years.
The Festival’s growing reputation, steadily increasing audience numbers, the superb facilities offered at venues such as Tennants in Leyburn, and the bigger-named artists we are now able to attract, have also resulted in some exciting new sponsors coming on-board:
Purple Creative Studio is a fast-growing web-design and e-commerce agency based in Aske, near Richmond. Purple designed and maintains our website, and the company designs our brochures, leaflets, posters and advertisements.
Handelsbanken, Latimer Hinks Solicitors and Kenneth Easby Chartered Accountants are highly-respected businesses with branches in Darlington and elsewhere. The three companies provide services to clients all over our region, and they have jointly sponsored our largest Festival event for the past two years. This year we are delighted that they are sponsoring the Hallé concert on 9 June in the Garden Rooms at Tennants, Leyburn.
We also welcome Swale Veterinary Surgery and Berry’s Farm Shop to the team this year, and thank them for their support.
We think of our sponsors as partners. They help us, both financially and in-kind, to make a difference - to produce a Festival each year that would be poorer without them. And we help each of them with a bespoke package of hospitality, marketing and publicity benefits.
To our long-term sponsors we offer our sincere thanks for exceptional loyalty and commitment. To our newer ones we offer a warm welcome and we look forward to working together for many years to come. And of course we urge our audience members to support these excellent local businesses too!