ILOW; the operating company that produces Porthleven Food Festival, St Ives Food and Drink Festival, Truro Food Festival and Rock Oyster Festival, has been awarded £157,605 as part of the Government’s £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund (CRF) to help tackle the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic. The funding will enable these much loved events to continue to run in the future and benefit the local communities involved.
ILOW is one of 588 cultural and creative organisations across the country receiving urgently needed support – with £76 million of investment announced. This follows £257 million awarded last week to 1,385 organisations, also from the Culture Recovery Fund grants programme being administered by Arts Council England on behalf of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Further rounds of funding in the cultural and heritage sector are due to be announced over the coming weeks.
ILOW produce a portfolio of independent food and music festivals throughout Cornwall including; the community led Porthleven Food Festival which brings around 40,000 people together in and around the stunning harbour of Porthleven; St Ives Food and Drink Festival, also steered by the local community, which takes place on the iconic Porthminster Beach and in 2019 saw visitor numbers swell to 25,000. The company also organises Truro Food Festival; which last year welcomed 35,000 visitors across three days and Rock Oyster Festival which was due to return this year with local Michelin-starred chef and restaurateur, Paul Ainsworth, hosting the weekend at Dinham House on the Camel Estuary.
Lee Bater, Managing Director of ILOW said:
“We are delighted and extremely grateful that our application to the Cultural Recovery Fund was successful. This year has been incredibly challenging, and the grant provides some much-needed stability. The funding will be used to guarantee the employment of the team that organise the festivals, enabling them to research and plan how the events can happen safely in 2021 and beyond. It will also provide support for promotion, programming, and production expenses of staging the festivals, with much needed deposits for artists and suppliers. Whilst this is a huge relief for us, our hearts go out to everyone who is still in desperate need of support.”
Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said:
“This is more vital funding to protect cultural gems across the country, save jobs and prepare the arts to bounce back. Through Arts Council England we are delivering the biggest ever investment in the arts in record time. Hundreds of millions of pounds are already making their way to thousands of organisations.
“These awards build on our commitment to be here for culture in every part of the country.”
Chair, Arts Council England, Sir Nicholas Serota, said:
“Culture is an essential part of life across the country, helping to support people’s wellbeing through creativity and self-expression, bringing communities together, and fuelling our world class creative industries.
“This latest set of awards from the Culture Recovery Fund builds on those announced recently and will help hundreds of organisations to survive the next few months, ensuring that the cultural sector can bounce back after the crisis. We will continue doing everything we can to support artists and cultural and creative organisations, with further funding to be announced in the coming weeks.”