Event Guidelines

get involved WITH refugee festival scotland 2023

You make Refugee Festival Scotland possible. Every year groups, organisations and individuals organise and attend hundreds of fantastic festival events in locations across Scotland.

This year, the festival runs from Friday 16 to Sunday 25 June and the theme is HOPE in all its forms.

This year our theme is 'Hope'

What makes you hopeful for the future? What do you look forward to? What are your dreams for yourself, your family, your community?

In difficult times, hope offers not only consolation and aspiration, but also a rousing call to action. At a time when people seeking safety in the UK are facing hostility and fear, Refugee Festival Scotland shines a bright and hopeful light on the cultural richness and diversity at the heart of our communities.

We invite you to join this shared celebration and explore what hope may look or feel like. We're looking for events that bring people from different backgrounds together and inspire hope through music, dance, film, theatre, visual art, poetry... and food, of course!

Join us to be part of this year’s festival and share your hopes for a better future.

Who can run an event?

Refugee Festival Scotland is a festival for everyone. And everyone is welcome to run an event, whether you're an individual, a local community group or a national institution,

To be part of the festival programme, your event must:

  • take place in Scotland
  • be open to the public
  • do at least one of these three things:
    1. Provide people from refugee backgrounds with a platform to showcase their art, cultural heritage and contribution to life in Scotland;
    2. Reduce loneliness and social isolation by providing refugees and people seeking asylum with an opportunity to become active members of their communities;
    3. Raise awareness about the challenges faced by people seeking safety in Scotland and promote a culture of understanding, welcome and support.

 

If your event doesn’t meet the above criteria, we will not be able to include it in the festival programme.

Submitting your event

Submissions for Refugee Festival Scotland 2023 are now open.

You can submit events by completing an Event Registration Form. (If you want to run more than one event, please complete a separate form for each event.)

Please make sure you complete all parts of the event submission form in full: the information you provide will be used to create a public event listing, letting people know when and where your event takes place and what will happen at it, so we need it to be accurate and up-to-date.

If we don’t have enough information about your event, we won’t be able to include it in the Refugee Festival Scotland programme.

provide a picture

Please remember to send us a photo or picture to go with your event listing.

Your image/s should be:

  • good quality and appropriate for audiences of all ages
  • no larger than 5 MB
  • no smaller than 500 KB
  • ideally 1200 x 600 pixels

 

We may also share the image you provide on social media, and in marketing and reports. Please provide the name of the photographer/source of your image so we know who to credit.

**IMPORTANT: Only send images that you have consent to use to promote your event, and that can be shared for publicity purposes**

Funding

Our Small Grants Fund  helps grassroots groups and community organisations take part in Refugee Festival Scotland.

We award small grants of up to £500 to help communities pay to run events as part of the festival programme. Find out more.

Please note the Small Grants Fund is now closed.