Bristol NPO ‘pauses’ festival amid financial challenges

An Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation based in Bristol has revealed it will be “pausing” its flagship arts festival for 2026 in response to rising costs and financial challenges.

MAYK, the producer behind the city’s biennial Mayfest, said that soaring operational costs, a challenging economic climate, and a lower-than-expected box office return in 2024 had compelled it to “reassess programming strategy to ensure the resilience of the organisation”.

Announcing the decision to put Mayfest on hold, MAYK noted that the 2024 festival had featured “ambitious and unusual performances” drawing “thousands of audience members”.

Despite this, the organisation said “the current economic landscape posed financial hurdles that were difficult to overcome”, with some of its costs doubling and its commitment to an accessible ‘Pay What You Can’ ticketing model yielding less revenue than projected.

Kate Yedigaroff and Matthew Austin, co-directors of MAYK said the decision, while “not easy” was about “safeguarding the organisation, ensuring that we’re working in a way that is financially sustainable”.

“It’s about ensuring that when we return to programme in the city again, we do so stronger, more resilient, and ready to continue creating the extraordinary experiences [audiences] have come to love,” they said.

To help stabilise MAYK’s immediate financial future and support their future work, the organisation has launched a campaign to raise £30,000.

In place of the festival, MAYK said it will dedicate its focus over the next two years to “nurturing artists, producing new works, and contributing to Bristol’s vibrant cultural life” through various projects, presentations and residencies.

Reduced activity

MAYK receives £91,656 of funding each year from ACE. Its most recent accounts from 2022/23 note that Bristol City Council was also one of its core funders.

However, in December 2023, MAYK said it was “hugely disappointed” not to have its local authority funding renewed following a delayed council assessment process the organisation called “deeply flawed” and “destabilising”.

In July, minutes of a high-level ACE meeting revealed that its regularly funded organisations had been experiencing “an ongoing trend of increased risk profiles for reasons such as rising costs”.

The minutes said that, while the funder does not have the resources to provide financial support to NPOs in difficulty, a number of measures were being taken, including work to assess the sector’s exposure to local authority financial challenges.

To help alleviate the inflationary pressures, ACE has offered NPOs the opportunity to reduce their activity plans by 15% across one or more of their current proposed activities or by removing whole activities or delivery against specified outcomes.