The Spot On Festival in Poulton-le-Fylde built on Lancashire’s regular Spot On Rural Touring programme, bringing high-quality live performances to rural and small-town venues across the county for nearly thirty years.

The Festival brought together a whole season of outstanding professional shows plus a celebration of local artists and choirs to one Lancashire market town over one jam-packed weekend. In the run-up, the organisers hosted a national conference bringing delegates from across the UK and as far afield as Canada.

With free and ticketed events – indoor and outdoor across 14 stages, the June festival and conference thrilled thousands of locals and visitors alike.

The festival has been selected as a finalist in the Best Small Event category for Lancashire Tourism Awards 2024.

We wanted to bring new visitors to Poulton – a historical market town neighbouring the glitz of Blackpool. We wanted to attract people who would shop, eat and drink by promoting the current retail and catering offer and introducing a curated Makers Market into the heart of the town.

We saw over 5000 visitors over the festival weekend. Interviews with caterers and retailers demonstrated that footfall and turnover in cafés such as Loaf, Costa and Booths were up between 50% and 75% during the festival. Booths supermarket footfall was up 50% and turnover was up 10% (we would expect festival goers to be making smaller transactions in Booths rather than a weekly shop). One of the servers in Thyme Restaurant comment that the Saturday had been the ‘…best day ever for tips’.

For more information on partnerships for the festival: Spot On Fest Evaluation – Partnerships

We’d like to thank all of the partners, funders, artists and audiences who helped to make this exciting project possible.