Support our unique festival of medieval music!

Gill Page is organizing this fundraiser.

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Hi, I'm Gill, and I'm the director of Medieval Music in the Dales, the UK's only festival of medieval music. I run Medieval Music in the Dales pretty much single-handed, with a lot of brilliant volunteer help.

The festival has been going since 2016. We never aim to make a lot of money from the festival (fortunately!) but just enough to keep it going, with top-class musicians paid properly. And we were doing great! indeed, going from strength to strength... until 2020 when COVID hit.

Since then, as with many smaller-scale festivals that receive little or no public funding, it's been a struggle financially to keep things going.

After a reduced-format festival in 2021, we were determined to come back in full force this year, and we have a simply fantastic programme lined up - you can find out all about it here. We are really looking forward to the festival (which takes place 9-11 September) and it's going to be great. But unless we can raise at least an extra £2000 my partner Paul and I will have to subsidise the festival this year to quite a large amount, and as self-employed musicians this is something that will hit us really hard. And what's more, it will force us to reconsider organising the festival at all.

It's a combination of factors. Some people are still understandably wary of mixing in groups of people they don't know... perhaps some people have just got out of the habit of festival-going? Everything is more expensive this year, so the festival costs an unexpected amount more and, on the other hand, individual finances are hit so that people may well feel they just can't afford it this year. One way or another, our numbers are slightly down and our costs are up, and as we operate on fine margins, it's just not adding up this year, which puts the whole event at risk going forward..

I hope that next year things will pick up again, for I really don't want to have to abandon this labour of love into which I and so many others have put so much. There is nothing like it in the country, and it's gained a loyal band of followers that was growing year on year until COVID and everything else. I've put so much into this festival and work so hard to make it a brilliant weekend full of music-making. It supports professional musicians (who, let's face it, need gigs right now), and it offers a valuable venue for enthusiasts and early-career professionals too.

But right now my gorgeous little festival needs help - and so do I. Can you help us out? Can you help provide the financial cushion to support this year's festival and help us into 2023 and hopefully better times? Of course, the best way you can support the festival is to come along, but if you can't do that then please give if you can!

What they say about Medieval Music in the Dales...

"a wonderful, unique event"

"amazing atmosphere, everyone is friendly and the location is outstanding"

"everyone in the tavern was singing the chorus of a twelfth century song in Latin – how cool is that?"

"truly magical"

"a safe space to be a geek!"