The Dragon Festival – Chinese New Year Celebrations in the Borders

By Stephen Kwan

On Saturday the seventeenth of February 2007, the first ever public celebration of Chinese New Year in the Borders was held on Channel Street Galashiels to celebrate the Year of the Pig!

With most events the initial idea stems from a lack of such events in the local area. The "what if" question pops into one's head followed by a vision of what the final outcome might look like. The drive to do it comes from a sense of rising to this new challenge.

Three years on, the Dragon Festival seems to have mushroomed into a popular day of cultural entertainment facilitating cross cultural learning and interaction. The Year of the Ox celebrations held in the Volunteer Hall on January 2009 saw Chinese acrobatics, martial arts demonstrations and world famous lion dancing. With over five hundred people attending, the event has built on the success of previous festivals.

Planning an event

The hardest part to an event is of course making sure that your idea has a good chance of success.

Is there a big enough market? What can you learn from similar events in other areas? Benchmarking and networking with other event organisers in a similar field will help. Location is key. Ensure that your event is easily accessible and if it will be outdoors have a contingency plan to combat the weather if possible.

Once you have established what you want to do, when and where, contact the Borders Event Forum for advice on event management and funding. Events have a positive economic impact on local areas and are therefore welcomed by local councils.

Events need to be safe, legal, practical and financially viable. Consider setting up a constituted group which will allow you to access funding especially start up funding more easily.

The BRIDGE in Galashiels can help you with constituting. The launch of www.scotbe.com aims to provide a one stop shop for event organisers enabling easy access to suppliers ranging from marquee hire to promotional printing.

Development of the Dragon Festival

Delivering your first event is a big achievement in itself but the ultimate achievement is sustainability. Sponsorship by local businesses helped the Dragon Festival get off the ground in the first year. Keeping the event small and simple in year one made the event financially feasible. Securing grant funding through Awards for All in year two injected much needed funds into our newly constituted group and enabled us to plan and deliver a much larger scale outdoor festival with stalls and extended entertainment.

In year three, we decided to move the festival indoors to limit any adverse impact from the unpredictable winter weather. With further access to funding from Awards for All and Scottish Borders Council, the event again diversified into new entertainment and was a huge success. Moving the event indoors proved that the festival could work indoors and provide scope for entry fees to maintain funding.

Building a team

In the early days, help to organise your event will come mostly from friends and family. However, as your event grows, there will be opportunities to join forces with other groups or recruit volunteers.

The Dragon Festival partnered up with the Border Equality Forum and Royal Air Cadets. Their much needed advice and physical support during the festival enabled us to successfully deliver the event and raise the profile of all parties involved. Having an event executive as part of the team has been vital. Event executives which now form part of the Borders Event Forum and Scottish Borders Council, can guide you from start till finish of your event as well as generate feedback.

Marketing your event

Depending on the type of event you organise, one of the most effective forms of advertising is PR. You should contact your local newspaper, radio and even television station who look for new and interesting stories. They could help promote your event for free especially if it is for a good cause.

Other good forms of advertising are distributing flyers and posters. www.scotbe.com will have listings of good local suppliers for such services. Consider setting up a website. Online Borders can help you set up a microsite for free. For more details speak to the BRIDGE in Galashiels. If your event involves children, consider getting the schools involved. It may be a great learning opportunity for children especially if the event promotes culture like the dragon festival.

Learnings

Overall, the dragon festival has been a lot of fun but of course a lot of work!

Learnings for organising events:

• Build a strong and motivated team
• Constitute early to access funding in time for your event
• Keep your event simple initially and build on feedback following success
• Work with local media to help promote your event
• Look at sustainability early on to ensure future funding
• Use the Borders Event Forum to help you plan your event and make sure you tick all the boxes from a legal and safety point of view
• Remember to enjoy the final outcome!