With only £8.1m of £1.57bn CRF allocated to festivals, DCMS will encourage operators to apply for further grants

DCMS head of policy for the creative industries Victoria MacCallum told the DCMS Committee during its final session in The Future of UK Music Festivals inquiry that Government will encourage festival operators to apply for the £300m extra Cultural Recovery Funding outlined by the chancellor in his 3 March Budget.

MacCallum said, “We are speaking regularly to the Association of Independent Festivals, and following the £300m Cultural Recovery Fund increase announced at Budget we will certainty look at redoubling our efforts to reach out to the smaller festivals to make sure they are aware of it.”

She revealed that of the 81 festivals that had applied to receive a CRF grant 51 has been successful, and of the 90 festival supply chain companies that applied 81 were successful.

The total CRF funding allotted to the festival sector amounts to £25m, with £8.1m of that being spread across the 51 festivals.

The DCMS Committee pointed out that festivals had received only half of the funding allotted to the National Trust.