Humber Street Sesh Generates Over £1 Million in Social Value
Photo: Phil McCoy
The festival’s operations both in the run-up to and during the 2023 event were analysed by Loop, a leading software provider, for a range of social, environmental, and economic impacts.
Our award-winning, annual music festival, impacts the community positively with a total social value of £1,061,118!
Where possible those impacts have been quantified with financial proxy values in order to show the scale of impact.
Loop uses the National Social Value Standard (SVS) for appraising social value, a framework developed by social value economists using the latest government and academic best practice.
Dave Mays, Festival Director said: “We know the event positively impacts the community on many levels but it’s great to have the experts from Loop analyse our data and quantify the scale of our total social value.
Social value is a new thing to us, and it took us a while to get our heads round the fact that the social value figure represents not just the obvious economic benefit to the community from the festival, but it also measures the social and environmental impact in pounds and pence.
It’s been an interesting process and we’re grateful to the experts at Loop for their report highlighting how the festival positively impacts the community, and areas where we could improve our social value to benefit the community further.”
The festival reveals an impressive combined social and economic impact totalling £557,083. Some of the factors considered in arriving at this figure were festival employment of nearly 1000 people which included artists, contractors, and staff; volunteering, and community health and wellbeing.
However, the stand-out positive impact was environmental which was calculated as £504,035!
Photo: Phil McCoy
This is not surprising, as festival organisers, in partnership with the University of Hull and J.R. Rix & Sons Ltd, reduced the event’s carbon emissions by 90% by switching from diesel to hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) to power the event in 2023.
Other green credentials include a solar-powered youth stage, sponsored by Wilberforce College, bamboo wristbands, biodegradable paper bar cups, waste disposal, and free travel put on by partners, Hull Trains, for festival goers from as far afield as Doncaster.
Another exceptional statistic in the Social Value report revealed that last year’s event had a social return-on-investment percentage of 386% which in lay terms means that for every £1 invested in the festival, it generates £3.86 of social value.
Rifayat Mirza Miah, Economist at Loop said: “We are pleased that our report is able to provide a total monetised figure on the social value that the event held in 2023 generated, as well as provide attendees, artists, and organisers with a social return-on-investment figure to solidify why attending the Humber Street Sesh is of value and importance.”
Elise Witty, Sponsorship and Communications Manager said: “We’re blown away by the social return-on-investment figure. It’s concrete evidence to stakeholders and sponsors that the festival is worth investing in.
Humber Street Sesh is a unique event that needs continual support from partners to sustain it. With sponsorship opportunities still available for 2024, we urge anyone interested in supporting the festival to get in touch right now!”
Photo: Phil McCoy