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Final Call for Leeds Festival Lost Property As Leeds Festival 2023 becomes a memory the Festival Angels are putting out a final call for people to claim items that have ended up in Lost Property. Hundreds of items have already been returned to owners and it is hoped the final push will see the majority of items returned to the owners before the 1st October closing date. Along with assorted clothing, bags and jewellery, the Festival Angels Lost Property also has: 52 wallets, 25 mobile phones, 109 full and provisional driving licences, hundreds of bank cards, 3 passports, dozens of sets of keys. Festival goers are invited to visit leedsfestivalangels.org.uk to access the LiffHappens database of unclaimed items. Most of the items are photographed but some deliberately have no image so that we can match descriptions with the item. Unclaimed items will be donated to St George's Crypt, the relevant agencies or destroyed. Festival Angels, who this year had two hundred and five volunteers working at Leeds Festival, have successfully reunited hundreds of items both at and following Leeds Festival.  Wow! What a summer! What a Festival season! THANK YOU to everyone who volunteered at the fourteen music festivals with either Festival Angels or teams we supported. We were at the biggest national festivals and several smaller regional festivals. Our teams went above and beyond to serve and help make the festivals a fun and safe experience for all. We are now planning 2024 festival season and will be announcing what festivals we are at and how to sign up early in the New Year. Thank you again and see you next year!   Read more about: Yarty Party Festival Angels Kendal Calling Festival Angels NME feature Reading Festival Street Pastors and Leeds Festival Angels Leeds Festival Angels on BBC and ITV local news 205 volunteers offer support at Leeds Festival Remembering Kate Dickinson in the Leeds Prayer Cafe We Are Church @ Creamfields  Festival Angels had a team at Our House Your House, a day of back to back DJs in Manchester! This was a day to promote house music as a way of combating the impact of negative mental health - more details are at ohyh.org .  Relive those festival moments - scroll back through posts, reports, pics and TikTok videos on Festival Angels socials - festivalangels on Facebook, X and TikTok and festivalangels1 on Insta and Threads.   
 Pictured - when mum messages to say her daughter has broken a bone in her foot the night before and is now on crutches - can you possibly help with getting her home? Detached team at the ready, wheelchair at the ready (no idea where that came from!) trolley at the ready... Daughter located, her and 5 friends taken to the Prayer Cafe, then onto the minibus, two dad's given instructions as to where to come to and an hour later girls on the way home hassle free!!! #LeedsFest #TeamWork
See you next year!!!!
Two hundred and five Festival Angel volunteers spent a week at Bramham Park, North Leeds as part of the welfare support at Leeds Festival. The Prayer Cafe, offered unlimited drinks and a Festival Angels mug for £7, and proved to be a god-send to festival goers. Lost Property, which this year encouraged people to pre-register phones, reunited items and owners and will continue to do so for the next few weeks. Detached teams and AIR (Assistance, Information, Response) Hubs offered support on the campsites and helped hundreds of festival-goers over the week. The chariot team offered hot drinks and chat to security based around the massive festival site. Here are some pictures from Leeds Festival Angels: The work of Festival Angels at Leeds was featured on both BBC Look North and ITV's Calendar. The features showed the Prayer Cafe and AIR Hubs in a feature around the increased welfare provision put in place by Festival Republic and various charities.  Click here for full article
READING STREET PASTORS - Sally Leonard, co-ordinator: “We have two tents in the Orange and Brown campsites, open right the way through to Monday morning. We’re basically a chill-out space with sofas, tables, chairs and the best hot chocolate on-site. We’re there to listen to people and be there as a friendly face. If people become overwhelmed then they can just come and chill out with us. “We invite people to come any time. We’re there for everybody, even the staff. The thing about festivals is that there often isn’t anywhere to just sit down and be away from everything. It’s really good for young people to just be able to come and do that. “We’ve been at Reading since 2012 and we always get an amazing reaction. The public and parents always say, ‘Thank goodness that you are there – we feel so much safer’. We’re a caring, listening and helping service. Not only are we in the tent, but we’re also patrolling the campsites from Thursday. We’re helping people to put up tents and signposting them to the right places, and it’s very much just about caring for everybody. “It can be very overwhelming for people at festivals. Particularly since COVID, we’ve seen a lot of anxious young people. In 2021 we had one person who’d come on the Wednesday and had a panic attack so we had to call her parents to pick her up. “It’s a fantastic festival and Festival Republic are really good at keeping young people safe. I’m part of the safeguarding group who meet every day to discuss what’s gone in the past 24 hours. People will make bad decisions and there be bad outcomes, but Festival Republic work hard to try and keep everyone safe. That’s why we’re all there.” Visit here for more information on Reading Street Pastors. FESTIVAL ANGELS – LEEDS - Paul Blakey – founder: “We started at Leeds in 2011, when there was a 79-year-old lady who lived in the village next to Bramham Park who wanted to do something. She got 12 of her friends together, Melvin Benn agreed to have a marquee, it snowballed from there and now we have 205 volunteers. “One of the most popular things we do is sell mugs for £7, that comes with unlimited tea, coffee, hot chocolate, Pot Noodles. We offer a place for young people who don’t need welfare or first aid, but just need that safe place at a festival. “Also run a lost property tent, returning thousands of items to festival-goers each year. Fans can pre-register their phones, get a sticker, and if people lose their phones and it ends up in the lost property tent then we can reunite the phone and its owner much quicker.” “We sell 5,000 mugs and stickers for phones, and we often tend to be the first place that people come to. Our cafe really quickly becomes a community, so people network between themselves and make friends there. Last year a girl traveled all the way from the coast of Scotland, catching five buses just to see Arctic Monkeys – she found her way into our cafe and now she’s a volunteer.” “We also have detached teams just wondering around the site, keeping an eye on things, helping people put up their tents, carry their luggage, and working with welfare and medical on some of the more serious things that might happen. “We’re there from people arriving to people leaving. When things go wrong, we’re one of the many groups of people there to pick up the pieces and help. We’re a friendly face and very visible, so people trust us.” “We always have a good vibe, with music playing and places to sit if you need to escape Leeds’ legendary sunshine. We’ve got colouring in to illustrate inspirational quotes and bible verses. The amount of young people who sit there colouring in when there’s so much music to see is amazing. It’s a creative and thoughtful place for people to relax and connect. People have just got their A Level and GCSE results and might want to meet people and talk about that. “There’s always a great vibe, and then there’s the joyful atmosphere when people are reunited with their phones and wallets!” Visit here for more information on Leeds Festival Angels. Festival Angels ask Leeds Festival goers to pre-register phones An app to assist Leeds Festival goers if they lose their phone is in place for this year’s festival which takes place over the August Bank Holiday weekend. Liff Happens is working in partnership with Festival Angels, who run the Lost Property tent, to encourage people to register their phone before they arrive on the festival site. Jo Lynch, the coordinator of Festival Angels Lost Property explains, "By registering a phone and giving details of a friend, who is also at the festival, means that if your phone is lost and finds its way to our Lost Property tent we can easily reunite phone and owner." The 2022 Leeds Festival saw 2568 people register their phones of which 390 of these were lost and successfully reunited with the owner, an incredible 89% return rate. The total number of items logged by Lost Property in 2022 was 1260. Each year hundreds of items are found on the festival site and handed to Lost Property. Festival Angel volunteers manage to reunite around 70% of the items at the festival and in the weeks following. Festival goers are encouraged to register via leedsfestivalangels.org.uk/lost and Festival Angels volunteers will also be encouraging festival goers to scan a QR code as they travel into the festival. Over 200 Festival Angels volunteers will be on hand throughout the event, helping people navigate the site, put up tents and stay safe, and, over the course of the long weekend, will serve at least 50,000 hot drinks through a £7 unlimited refills mug deal. For more information visit leedsfestivalangels.org.uk  Forty six Festival Angels were in the fields for our fourth year at Kendal Calling. Set in scenic Lowther Deer Park the team were on hand running a Safe Hub in the campsites and detached patrols across the whole site. Festival Angels were part of the welfare offer to festival-goers. Over the six days we engaged and supported festival-goers in a variety of ways including: helping people find space and set up camp; handing out essential items such as sanitary products and plasters; giving out Jesus Loves Festivals tattoos; filling pot noodles so people could have food; supporting welfare and security with a wide range of incidents; making time for people to ensure that they had a safe and enjoyable Kendal Calling experience. Several festival-goers said to us that they would be safe at Kendal Calling because the Festival Angels were on site and security thanked us for sorting out several issues before they became a major problem. A Festival Angels team selfie with musician Example was shared on his social media with over half a million followers on his Instagram alone. Thanks to the amazing team who went and beyond time and again. Last weekend (21st - 23rd July) Kilmington Baptist Church and The Life Community Axminster teamed up to provide 'Festival Angels' for the Yarty Party. They report "it was great to meet and help lots of people having a great time, have some meaningful conversations, and cover the event in prayer." "A huge well done to the organisers of the @Yarty Party Festival for putting on such a great weekend, and battling through the rain on Saturday. And thanks to our fantastic team of angels!"      |
