Arts Award lands at Latitude

Last weekend the Arts Award Voice team headed to beautiful Suffolk for Latitude Festival. You can peruse their reviews and blogs over on www.artsawardvoice.com. Arts Award Training Coordinator, Daf Evans, joined them on Friday. He tells us about how Latitude supports young people complete their Arts Awards – in almost any art form you can think of!

If there’s anywhere that you can try new things, meet interesting new people and enjoy the (albeit fleeting) British summertime – it’s a festival! So, I was delighted to join the Arts Award Voice team at Latitude recently and get involved in some of the fantastic events and workshops taking place, as well as enjoy everything else the festival had to offer.

In its 10 year existence, Latitude has always been known for its great mix of music, theatre, art, comedy, cabaret, poetry, politics, dance and literature. The festival provides young people a platform to experience areas of the arts they both know and have never tried before. In its second year as an Arts Award Supporter, Latitude also gives the opportunity for lots of keen young artists to build up a very unique Arts Award portfolio, and there was certainly something for everyone.

The Voice team, despite their aching backs and sore heads from the first night in their tents, were there bright and early on Friday, raring to open the Discover tent. Here, young people from local schools and beyond had the opportunity to complete their Arts Award Discover in a single day! Taking part in craft workshops and talks by authors, they found out about other artists’ work and were encouraged to share their own work with others.

It wasn’t just crafts on the table either; in the enticingly-named Enchanted Garden there was much more to take part in. Beatboxing, Shakespeare, music rooms and poetry workshops to name a few! Teachers and parents were delighted to see every young person find their niche and there was certainly no opportunity for anyone to get bored.

As well as taking part in new and exciting experiences in the arts, Latitude was also the perfect place for young people to build up their creative portfolios at the higher levels of Arts Award. For young people completing their Silver and Gold Arts Award, it was their leadership and planning skills that were put to the test. Hidden a short walk into the pine forest was the Inbetweeners' Teen area, which provided a base camp for all those young arts leaders to plan and promote their workshops. Here, music production, DJ workshops, photography, animation and fashion were the big-hitters, as well as a studio for young promoters to learn how to gather and present news features, with learning led directly by industry professionals.

As the evening drew closer the festival grounds got busier, leading up to the first night of the long weekend. The musical spectacles got bigger, louder and rowdier, no doubt providing the young people with a bit of let-your-hair-down time after a fruitful and productive day. It’s safe to say that Latitude is as exciting and packed full of activity as ever, and as it shares its 10^th birthday with Arts Award this year, we’re sure to see our presence grow bigger again in the future.

Were you at Latitude this year? What did you think about everything that was on offer? We’d love to hear your feedback so please do get in touch or leave a comment below!