Event Background

The festival originated from a proposal for a "festival of stewardship" in response to the G8 summit in 2004. The programme content has evolved over the years but at its heart, the festival remains an environmental and family festival with an excellent music and cultural programme.

Billed as Scotland's largest Eco Festival, the festival is set against the backdrop of the East Lomond Hill, next to Falkland Palace. Festival goers can go cycling, walking, exploring or watch the comedy, poetry and musical lineup. There's also storytelling, drum circles, puppetry, craft and art and a whole host of other activities with the Family Zone.

The One Planet Food Village offers local and seasonal fresh produce and cooking demos while The Climate Champions Zone profiles the climate change projects of communities from all over Scotland. The new Wild about Wood Zone provides hands-on opportunities to learn woodland craft skill and see demos by Scottish craftsmen and The Market Zone is the eco-conscious traders’ zone and the Body and Soul Zone offers alternative therapies. Lastly the Head Zone features a series of Earth Action seminars and debates from world renowned scientists, campaigners and authors.

Big Tent is the only event in Scotland to have been awarded an 'outstanding' category at the Greener Festival Awards.  The event has also won the Sustainable Category for Fife Excellence in 2008; listed as one of Britain's Best 10 Family Days Out by Times Online; voted in the Top Ten Folk Festivals by the Guardian, and also listed as the top Green Festival in the UK in the Guardian in 2009.

Tourism

11,500 spectators attended Big Tent in 2010.  Visitors from out with Fife represented 71% of the total, with 60% from the rest of Scotland, 8% from England, 1% from Northern Ireland and 2% from Elsewhere, which included Slovakia, United States and Canada.  Estimated net additional impact from outside Scotland was £254,829.

Media

Extensive media coverage from a variety of outlets ranging from local press to Sunday Times, Daily Express and Sunday Herald plus coverage in USA and Poland was garnered. The Big Partnership were brought on board for the first time and this resulted in AEV of £291,368 with a PR value of £875,104. The ROI was 58.3:1 which Big noted was the highest return on investment achieved by Big to date.

Environment

A much more robust recycling policy was introduced in 2010 with dedicated stewards to support visitors to make the right rubbish choice.  Nearly 50% of waste went into recycling or compost heaps instead of landfill, which was a major improvement on previous years. Organisers ensured that traders used recycled disposables.

Free public buses from local train stations were laid on to encourage visitors to leave their cars at home and free strawberries were available to reward those who came by public transport.

Social and cultural benefits

The local community was able to buy reduced price tickets to enable them to enjoy a music festival on their doorstep.  Even then the cost of tickets to attend Big Tent is kept low in comparison to other music festivals so as to ensure it is accessible.

Culturally, the Big Tent offered a large range of music and performances, for example bringing international acts such as Brazil! Brazil! to the Fife area.

To find out more about the event, visit the event website at www.bigtentfestival.co.uk