Changes to the Awards process

THERE IS an important change to the way some of the Awards are decided this year.

Instead of public vote, the following categories are being decided by a judging panel made up of journalists and reviewers who have been visiting festivals and scoring them on criteria which have been set by the industry:

Best Major/Medium/Small Festival
Best Metropolitan Festival
Best New Festival
Best Toilets
Best Family Festival
Best New Festival
Line-Up Of The Year

If you have submitted a nomination to be included in one of the above categories, our judges will have visited your festival and have submitted their scores. The only category you need to ask fans to vote for your event in is Fans’ Favourite Festival.

The aim of the change is to make the UK Festival Awards more accessible to all festivals. We recognise that not all festivals have audiences which would go online to vote, so wanted to make sure the Awards are as inclusive as possible.

It’s still vital that the fans get to have their say – which is why we created The Fans’ Favourite Festival Award. All festivals taking part in the Awards are eligible for this category. Votes from the public will be weighted by the event’s capacity to decide the winner.

Click here for a list of criteria
Click here for a list of the Awards and how they’re decided