You will all be aware that the short-notice changes for the 2024 programme were not ideal. We had to do this in order to comply with our Local Authority licence but we were thrilled with the way that everyone involved worked together to create such a happy Festival.
The 2025 Festival (8-15th March) is already in the planning stages and this is your chance to have your say. Before you fill in the questionnaire form, please read about how we must comply:
The significant rule is that we cannot schedule classes that require children to have leave of absence from school to perform at the Festival. However a school can arrange their own “school trip”, under the leadership of their own staff.
The national legislation differentiates between different types of school but North Yorkshire Licensing Authority will not issue a licence that would favour, for example, an academy over a LA school.
This means that, within school hours:
- Classes such as school choirs are unaffected because each school ordinarily attends with their own staff as a school-sponsored visit.
- Group classes such as the recorder ensembles may be possible in school time after discussions with the schools that have entered.
- Solo classes may be possible provided that all the performers are present at the Festival as part of a school-sponsored visit.
(e.g. all performers are members of groups performing in that session) - Most solo classes such as the junior piano ones cannot be scheduled during school time.
This means we need:
- To find at least one extra non-school day during the Festival.
- To minimise the extra overheads as far as possible. Our professionals, the adjudicator and accompanist, expect to be fully employed so empty mornings are expensive!
The following draft schedule is very much a working document; nothing can be confirmed until all the entries are in, although we have been able to identify a few sessions already. Your comments will help us to complete the plan.
