Migration Matters Festival 2021

Delivery of twin festivals celebrating global sanctuary and migration: a fully online offer, followed by a complex hybrid event in quirky Sheffield venues.

The project

Sheffield’s annual celebration of sanctuary and migration champions the voices and talents of marginalised people. The 2021 team planned a digital festival, and an in-person festival with digital elements, to welcome worldwide audiences.

The brief

The goal was to welcome Sheffield residents, and a global audience drawn to the festival through 2020’s online programme, back to the city’s much-loved venues - alongside smoothly-integrated digital platforms. Following the reduction of coronavirus restrictions in the UK, the in-person programme took place in July and required social distancing capabilities, online accessibility and fully digital elements integrated into the programme.

The solution

Traditionally celebrated to coincide with Refugee Week, Migration Matters Festival curated a digital programme to correspond with worldwide events celebrating migration and sanctuary in June. This was followed by a hybrid week in July where we worked across unique spaces to provide technical support to performers and speakers from across the globe. This included lighting, sound and staging support for over 50 in-person events, as well as live streaming over 15 events to the festival website.

In digital spaces, we created a unified visual identity, and ensured easy access for audiences from all backgrounds from registration through to participation using Zoom, Eventbrite, Vimeo and YouTube.