Community dividend: Humber Street Sesh has ‘social value’ of £1m
Picture credit: Phil McCoy
By Simon Bristow, Co-Editor
Humber Street Sesh, Hull’s annual outdoor music festival, has been found to have a positive “social value” of more than £1m.
The festival’s operations, both in the run up to and during the 2023 event, were analysed by software provider Loop for a range of social, environmental, and economic impacts.
Where possible those impacts have been quantified with financial proxy values to show the scale of impact.
Loop use 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.
This found Sesh had a combined social and economic impact worth £557,083, while its positive environmental impact was calculated at £504,035.
Factors taken into account include the employment of nearly 1,000 people, such as artists, contractors, and staff, as well as volunteering, and the impact on community health and wellbeing.
Environmental factors included reducing the event’s carbon emissions by 90 per cent in 2023 by switching from diesel to hydrotreated vegetable oil to power the festival. Other green credentials include a solar-powered youth stage, bamboo wristbands, biodegradable paper bar cups, waste disposal, and free travel put on Hull Trains for festival goers from as far afield as Doncaster.
Picture credit: Neil Holmes
The analysis also suggested that every £1 invested in last year’s event generated a social value of £3.86, the festival said.
Festival director Dave Mays 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.”
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.”
The festival showcases more than 100 acts and provides a platform for emerging regional artists as well as critically acclaimed bands from further afield.
This year’s Humber Street Sesh will take place at Hull Marina on Saturday, August 3 from noon to 11pm.