Authors Jo Coulson, Freelance Evaluation Consultant for Bristol Walk Fest Kerry Morgan, Marketing and Project Management Consultant, Freelance Project Coordinator for Bristol Walk Fest Bristol Walk Fest 2018 Evaluation Report
Authors
Jo Coulson, Freelance Evaluation Consultant for Bristol Walk Fest
Kerry Morgan, Marketing and Project Management Consultant,
Freelance Project Coordinator for Bristol Walk Fest
Bristol Walk Fest 2018
Evaluation Report
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Table of contents
1. Executive summary
1.1 About this report
1.2 Evaluation methods
1.3 Summary: evaluation findings and festival impact
1.3.1 Audience demographics
1.3.2 Participant feedback
1.3.3 Event/walk provider feedback
1.3.4 Marketing and publicity
2. Project background
3. Governance, management and funding
3.1 Festival owners
3.2 Festival delivery team
3.3 Funders and supporters
3.4 Suppliers
4. Festival aims and objectives
4.1 Festival vision
4.2 Festival aims
4.3 Festival objectives
4.4 Support for programme providers and contributors
5. Findings and interpretation
5.1 Festival outputs and monitoring
5.2 Walk and event participant feedback
5.3 Provider feedback
5.4 Evaluation strengths and limitations
6. Marketing and communications report
6.1 Branding
6.2 Print materials and distribution
6.3 Digital screens
6.4 PR and media
6.5 Blogs, case studies and features
6.6 Social media
6.7 Website
6.8 Discovery pathways: graph 11
6.9 Photography
6.10 Active 10 Challenge
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7. Conclusions and recommendations
7.1 Conclusion
7.2 Recommendations
7.2.1 Recommendations: festival content and organisation
7.2.2 Recommendations: marketing and publicity
7.2.3 Recommendations: evaluation
7.2.4 Other recommendations
Graphs
1. Gender (participants’)
2. Age
3. Ethnicity
4. Where participants live
5. Participants’ self-reported walking frequency
6. Time participants spend walking
7. Participants’ intention to increase walking
8. Satisfaction with event submission process
9. Satisfaction with marketing toolkit
10. Satisfaction with walk leaders’ toolkit
11. Discovery pathways
Appendices
Appendix A - Infographic (main findings)
Appendix B - List of walk/event providers
Appendix C - Bristol Walk Fest 2018 Steering Group
Appendix D - ‘Destination Bristol’ marketing report
Appendix E - About the authors and declared interests
Appendix F - Recommendations from 2017 (‘They said, we did’)
Appendix G - References
Appendix H - PR and media summary
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1. Executive Summary 1.1 About this report This report presents findings from the evaluation for Bristol Walk Fest (BWF) 2018, along with resulting conclusions and recommendations for the future. It details the evaluation methods and findings in relation to the delivery of the festival - including its aims, objectives and measures of success. 1.2 Evaluation methods
The purpose of our evaluation was to understand if the event was a success, identify
learning for any future BWFs, and to demonstrate accountability and transparency to
funders and stakeholders. We took a mixed-methods, summative approach and the
analysis was predominantly based on self-report data gathered via participant and
walk/event provider surveys. We also present monitoring and output data such as
participant demographics and media activity.
For the purposes of this report, and the data and presented herein, LinkAge Network is the
‘Data Controller’ (as per General Data Protection Regulations 2018). Walk participant data
supplied to the freelance evaluator was non-identifiable: personal information was
removed ahead of transfer and analysis and, in any case, restricted to the people that
chose to add contact details for the purposes of the prize draw. There were not considered
to be any significant ethical issues with the nature of the data or evaluation overall.
Overall, the responses of 649 participants and 41 providers were analysed for this report.
1.3 Summary: evaluation findings and festival impact
1.3.1 Audience demographics
• 163 walks and events were delivered by 69 organisations - compared to 155 walks
and events delivered by 60 organisations in 2017.
• At least 4,448 people attended BWF 2018: 2,915 more people than in 2017 (a
190% increase), and a 39% increase on 2016 (an estimated 3,200 attendees).
• Eight in ten participants were aged 50 and over.
• 66% of participants identified as female, 31% male and 3% ‘other’.
• 82% of attendees lived in a City of Bristol postcode.
• Only 6.2% of participants were from non-white/Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic
groups, meaning many ethnicities and Bristol communities were under-represented.
• 6% of attendees considered themselves disabled, and there is still room for
improvement on making the festival as inclusive as it can be.
• 45% said they only walked once or twice a week: 3% said they ‘never’ walked. BWF
therefore may have reached a good proportion of people who didn’t meet the UK
national guidelines on physical activity for health.
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1.3.2 Participant feedback
• Immensely popular event with enthusiastic praise for organisers and walk leaders.
• No significant operational problems with fewer than five mixed/slightly negative
comments.
• Simple thematic analysis revealed that people enjoyed ‘learning-as-they-walked’,
and the physical and social benefits of participation.
• Festival promotion by far the most dominant theme: people loved the printed
programme and thought the website was much better, especially the online
calendar.
• Participants still wanted the ability to download a print-out from the website.
• Walk accessibility and variety were highly praised: the festival was felt to be
ethnically-diverse and inclusive - with the feeling of a ‘warm welcome’.
• However, even greater accessibility would be appreciated e.g. more variety in start
times and walk pace, more children’s walks, and better timing of walk-starts to
coincide with older walkers’ free bus pass usage.
• People wanted to be able to give feedback on individual walks.
• Concerns expressed about future festival funding, with some suggestions for
income generation.
• People wanted ‘even more of the same’: even wider publicity and for the festival to
carry on and mature.
• 74% said the festival would encourage them to walk more.
1.3.3 Event/walk provider feedback
• All 41 providers wanted to contribute again next year.
• Took part for a variety of reasons including to increase audiences, reach new ones and be part of a citywide/national event.
• The large majority felt satisfied/very satisfied with the event submission process, marketing and walk leaders’ toolkits, with a few helpful suggestions for next time round.
• No-one gave any completely negative feedback - only suggestions where there was still room for improvement e.g. around further website improvement, and in avoiding everything feeling ‘last minute’.
• Providers felt highly-supported by the BWF Project Coordinator with promotion and marketing, which happened alongside their own.
• People felt the website had been vastly improved - especially the online calendar. But also in the ability to check their own listings and their presentation.
• Website features that people found a bit tricky were: specific event searching and not being able to find the participants’ evaluation survey very easily.
• Reasons for not linking through to BWF’s electronic media were: not having own website/using social media, “not enough time” and employers’ internet restrictions.
• Providers greatly benefited from involvement, particularly appreciating: the publicity, attracting new walkers, more community awareness about their work, ‘being part of something’, networking, and the pleasure of seeing people out walking and enjoying themselves.
• The Project Coordinator highlighted challenges around festival delivery such as: ~70 working days to organise it, start to finish (with, consequently, insufficient time for optimal website development), reduction in funding (versus 2016), providers
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making last-minute changes to walk details and, generally, the rapid transfer to a voluntary community sector provider - with incomparable infrastructural support and inherent resource to Bristol City Council.
• Bristol City Council’s in-kind support/resource was still highly-valuable. 1.3.4 Marketing and publicity
• 8,814 users (visitors) to the website 1 April - 1 June 2018.
• Between 15 January and 1 June, the BWF Facebook page likes increased from
1,358 to 1,587 (16.9% increase).
• From 30 March to 1 June 2018, the BWF Twitter account had 352 new followers
and achieved 152,500 tweet impressions - an average of 1,700 impressions per
day. There was a total of 2,613 engagements.
• The most popular ways of finding out about the festival were (in descending order):
through walking or community groups (n=204 people, 31.4% of all 649
respondents); word of mouth (n=190, 29.3%); poster/festival programme, the
website, ‘other’, social media and newspapers - the latter being a discovery
pathway for only 11 people (1.7%).
Please also refer to Appendix A for a summary of some of our main findings presented as
an infographic. Encouragingly, there was a high level of triangulation between provider and
participant feedback, and festival provider observations about successes, learning and
rooms for improvement for future festivals.
Finally, and to conclude our Executive Summary, we consider that evaluation analysis and
reporting were more robust than in previous years.
2. Project background
Bristol Walk Fest (BWF) took place from 1 to 31 May 2018. The festival included 163
walks and events delivered by 69 organisations, as well as individual volunteers.
We received providers’ attendance numbers from 162 of the walks and events which
indicated that over 4,400 people got involved - a 190% increase from the previous year,
which attracted an estimated 1,532 participants. Participant numbers at separate walks
and events ranged from 0-111. Four walks and events were cancelled due to the providers
not being able to run them.
The Bristol Walking Festival started in 2013 with over 500 people taking part across the
city: 2018 marked the sixth year of the programme. The original event offered over 40
walks - varying from urban exploring, apothecary walks, history trails to hikes led by
walking groups, including the Bristol Ramblers. Festival marketing encouraged people to
explore the city and enjoy the social and healthy activity of walking.
This year, the festival was coordinated by Active Ageing Bristol - a collaboration between
Bristol Sport Foundation, The Anchor Society and St Monica Trust, in partnership with the
LinkAge Network and Bristol Ramblers. Investment from Active Ageing Bristol, the
Travelwest Fund, Bristol Ramblers and Bristol Ageing Better. See Appendices B and C,
and Section 3, for further information on all our funders, providers and partners.
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Throughout the month of May, there was a packed programme of walks in and around
Bristol. Many of the walks/events were free and, with different walks available nearly every
day, there was something for everyone - especially local people.
Our aims were to bring people together around walking activity in all its forms; celebrate
some of Bristol’s great existing walking projects; strengthen our diverse walking
community - including to learn from each other and stimulate new links and initiatives.
Working together as a city gave us a unique opportunity to showcase and nurture Bristol’s
already-vibrant and diverse walking offer - co-creating the active walking opportunities we
want for the future, whilst celebrating existing opportunities.
For the last six years, BWF has encouraged people of all ages to go out and get active at
whatever level they can. Good weather played its part during this year’s event, but from
the available evidence, we consider this year as having been most successful - and on
many levels - with improvement on previous years’ delivery and evaluation.
3. Governance, management and funding
3.1 Festival owners
LinkAge Network took on the role of event lead, providing banking, insurance and a policy
framework. This was done on an in-kind support basis.
3.2 Festival delivery team
The core Active Ageing Bristol festival delivery team comprised:
• Karen Lloyd, Active Ageing Bristol Manager
• Kerry Morgan, Freelance Project Coordinator (part-time equivalent)
• Eileen Bartlett, volunteer Admin Support Officer (0.4 FTE).
Of these roles, only that of the Active Ageing Bristol Manager was permanent full-time, and
she committed two days a week from February 2018 to May 2018 on tasks to support the
Project Coordinator. All other roles, including contractors and consultants were part-time,
temporary, freelance and/or voluntary/in-kind.
A steering group of partners and volunteers was set up to help guide event delivery
(Appendix C).
3.3 Funders and supporters
Funders
The festival was funded to the total value of £15,557 by the following organisations:
• Active Ageing Bristol (£7,557)
• Bristol Ageing Better (£1,000)
• Bristol Ramblers (£1,000)
• Travelwest Fund (£6,000)
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The team did not have the time or capacity to seek out additional sponsorship
opportunities this year.
Supporters
The festival was only made possible by the additional support, both direct and in-kind, from
institutional and commercial partners:
• BWF partners and contributors, including some in-kind hours from the report
authors.
• Bristol City Council: provided office space to house the delivery team one day a
week, and several officers were members of the BWF steering group.
• Bristol Ramblers: provided the volunteer Admin Support Officer, promoted the
festival via their marketing channels. Several members were also part of the BWF
steering group.
• Bristol Walking Alliance: provided a four-day exhibition hub in the Vestibule to
promote information about walking in and around Bristol.
• Cotswold Outdoor Bristol: donated £100 gift voucher for the participant survey prize
draw which was promoted on the printed programme and surveys.
• Clifton Hotels: offered accommodation discounts at selected hotels for people
booking a stay during the festival and promoted the festival via their social media
channels. It transpired that, surprisingly, no-one took up any of these offers.
• LinkAge Network: promoted the festival via their website, e-newsletter, social media
channels, and helped with leaflet and poster distribution.
• Living Streets: provided marketing content for use on the BWF website, included
articles in their newsletter, helped with leaflet distribution to council offices and
selected schools.
• Destination Bristol: provided marketing support to target tourists (See Appendix D
for details).
3.4 Suppliers
Bristol Walk Fest 2018 official suppliers were:
• Aurora; web copy and editing services.
• Bristol City Council; web design and hosting services.
• The Branding Coach; branding consultant and graphic designer.
• Jeni Nott Photography; photographer.
• Pear Communications; print distribution agency.
• 42 Group; a media, content and copywriting agency.
• Jo Coulson; independent/freelance Evaluation Consultant*.
• Kerry Morgan; Marketing and Project Management Consultant*.
*Please also refer to Appendix E for more information about the report authors and their
declared interests.
We are also very grateful to the following suppliers who provided support in-kind:
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• The Branding Coach; branding consultant and graphic designer.
• 42 Group; a media, content and copywriting agency.
4. Festival aims and objectives
Building on the success of the 2017 festival, BWF 2018 followed a similar model. Its aims
and objectives were adapted slightly to reflect the funding requirements and the
recommendations made in the 2017 evaluation (Lowman et al., 2017).
4.1 Festival vision
“The UK’s largest urban celebration of walking”.
4.2 Festival aims
The aims of the 2018 BWF were to:
• Encompass walking for travel, health, leisure, learning and inspiration/creativity.
• Encourage people to get out walking to enhance health and wellbeing.
• Bring people together in a way that benefits individuals, communities and the
environment.
• Showcase organisations and professionals providing walks in Bristol.
• Raise the profile of Bristol as a walking destination.
• Evaluate the festival impact on peoples’ attitudes towards walking and behaviour
change.
4.3 Festival objectives
The objectives of the 2018 BWF were to:
1. Form a steering group to support and develop the festival.
2. Offer a programme of over 100 walks and events across the city.
3. Offer walks on 25 out of 31 festival days.
4. Offer a more even split between morning, afternoon and evening walks.
5. Broaden the range of walk themes e.g. history, art, education, creative, fitness.
6. Engage with 25 different organisations offering walks or events.
7. Achieve a reasonable geographical spread of walks or events across the city.
8. Make at least 80% of walks free.
9. Increase the number of walking sports (previously two events).
10. Make some walks accessible to people with physical, mental and sensory
impairments.
11. Organise 8 evening walks (through Bristol Ramblers).
12. Organise a partnership health walk (through Walk for Health Bristol).
13. Achieve at least 60% of journeys to walk-starts accessible via public transport or
active travel.
14. Start at least 90% of walks within the Bristol boundary.
15. Provide a positive experience for providers, so that they would be open to hosting
future walks and events.
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We were also very keen to address the recommendations in the BWF 2017 Evaluation
Report (Lowman et al., 2017). To help contextualise progress since last year, our actions
and achievements are summarised in Appendix F, taking a ‘They said, we did’ approach.
4.4 Support for programme providers and contributors
BWF 2018 supplied programme providers and contributors with the following resources to
help them make the most of their involvement:
• Guide for walk/event organisers: guidance notes before completing the ‘Event
Submission Form’.
• Risk assessment template: a resource for providers to carry out a risk assessment
of all their routes (for ‘best practice’).
• Marketing toolkit: to help providers promote their walk/event, which included:
o The Bristol Walk Fest logo.
o Standard copy for newsletters, magazines and websites.
o Poster templates.
o Suggested social media posts and images.
o Press release template.
• Leader/organiser resource packs which included an:
o Event and walk checklist: to help run safe and enjoyable walks/events.
o Event and walk register: for capturing attendance numbers.
o Promotional programmes, posters and marketing materials such as
drawstring bags and water bottles (old promotional stock).
o Participant feedback surveys: for distribution to walkers/attendees.
5. Findings and interpretation The programme of walks and events at the festival was devised to meet the festival aims
and objectives listed in Section 4. The purpose of our evaluation was to understand if the
event was a ‘success’. Its aims were to identify learning for any future BWFs and
demonstrate accountability and transparency to funders and stakeholders. We took a
mixed-methods, retrospective approach - presenting here festival outputs, participant
demographics, media monitoring and summative/self-report festival experience data. Data
sources were:
1. Walk and event ‘submission forms’ (online): Registered the nature and details of the
walks and events, input by providers before the festival - to allow population of the
programme.
2. Online booking system and attendance register: Participant numbers per walk/event
were collected by the provider and sent to the Project Coordinator by email, which
were then recorded on a spreadsheet.
3. A Participant-Reported Experience Measure (PREM) - print and online versions of a
survey: Completed by festival attendees. It included questions about demographics
and the festival experience. The print versions were sent to walk/event providers in
advance - to distribute at each of their walks/events, for the whole 31-day
programme.
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4. A second PREM survey – for organisers/providers (online only and completed after
the festival).
5. Social media (Twitter and Facebook insights) and website analytics (Google
analytics).
6. Monitoring of print and broadcast coverage: Media impact was collected and
recorded by the Project Coordinator, including via Google searches.
To ease understanding, we have incorporated relevant observations and interpretations
into each section of the findings.
5.1 Festival outputs and monitoring
• 163 walks and events were delivered by 69 organisations - compared to 155 walks
and events delivered by 60 organisations in 2017.
• The average walk length was 2.5 miles, and we estimate that the total, cumulative
miles walked by all participants across all walks exceeded 7,323 miles.
• Walks and events took place every day in May 2018. They were split between 102
(62.6%) morning walks, 32 (19.6%) afternoon walks (12 noon-5.59pm), and 29
(17.8%) evening walks (starting after 6pm). Although a more even split may be
more beneficial to some of the population (e.g. working adults), this was largely
determined by what providers could offer. Also, academic research (Davis et al.,
2011) found that, amongst older people living in Bristol, physical activity levels are
significantly greater in mornings than afternoons and evenings. In attracting older
people as the key audience, this suggests that our offer may have largely met their
needs/preferences, and might have indeed incentivised attendance.
• 132 (81%) of the walks and events were offered for free. Thirteen (8%) were ‘pay
what you think/donations welcome’ and 18 (11%) were charged up to a maximum of
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£30.
• 30 walking sports were offered, compared to two last year: a fifteen-fold increase.
• There were nine art and creativity walks, 46 health and wellbeing walks, 38 history
and architecture walks, 31 nature and wildlife walks, 30 walking sports and nine
education and learning walks. The last two were introduced for the first time this
year.
• 42 (25.8%) walks were listed as wheelchair accessible, a 17% increase on last
year. A number of other features were listed in the programme key to allow people
to assess their suitability - including mobility scooter friendly, accessible toilets and
frequent rest stops. Last year, 36 walks were listed as wheelchair and mobility
scooter accessible: again, all well-evidenced environmental and accessibility
considerations for the high proportion of older participating walkers (Moran et al.,
2014).
• Bristol Ramblers delivered 11 evening walks - exceeding their target of eight.
• 143 (87.7%) of walks/events were accessible by public transport, although we do
not know what proportion of people arrived this way. Active travel options were
encouraged by including a links to the Travelwest journey planner and website, and
the BWF website – which included the nearest bus stops to walk/event start
locations.
• Only six (3.7%) of the walks started outside the Bristol boundary. It is important for
the festival to retain a high percentage of walks that start fairly centrally for
accessibility to the widest audience. Even for these six, the majority of providers
organised return car shares (with a request for petrol contributions) from a Bristol
central meeting point.
5.2 Walk and event participant feedback
Participants’ demographic profile
The following graphs give a breakdown of the demographic information we collected from
the 649 BWF walk and event participants that completed our feedback survey.
Gender: graph 1
The first graph shows that nearly two-thirds (n=425, 66%) of participants identified as
female, 31% (n=204) as male and 3% (n=20) as either transgender or preferred not to say.
This compares to Bristol local authority’s female-male split of 49.9%/50.1% respectively
(Bristol City Council, 2018).
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Age: graph 2
Around eight in ten participants were aged 50 and over (n=518, 79.8%). This is
proportionally more than the >50s in the wider Bristol population - at 27.6% (Bristol City
Council, 2018). The 25-49 age group was the second most common (n=112, 17.3%). Only
ten individuals were aged 24 or under.
204 (31.4%)
425 (65.5%)
1 (0.2%) 19 (2.9%)
Walk participants: gender (n=649)
Male Female Transgender Prefer not to say
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Notably, these figures don’t include the 1,800 children and young people who were
reported to have attended the ‘Happyshoes Day’, but for which age group breakdowns
aren’t available. This is a national event, run by Living Streets, where children and adults
wear the shoes that make them happiest (see Appendix G), and it ran on 22 May 2018. It
was beyond the scope of this evaluation to investigate the incorporation of any of their
routinely-collected participation data.
Ethnicity: graph 3
Most participants were white (n=578, 89.1%). Excluding people who didn’t want to say, or
for whom there were missing data (n=31, 4.8%), the remaining 40 (6.2%) were from Black,
Asian and Minority Ethnic groups. This compares with the 22% of Bristol’s population who
are not ‘White British’ (Bristol City Council, 2018) - meaning that, unfortunately, such
population groups were under-represented. This could be an area for targeted
development for any future BWFs.
2 (0.3%) 9 (1.4%)
112 (17.3%)
228 (35.1%)
236 (36.5%)
54 (8.3%)
8 (1.2%)
Walk participants: age groups (n=649)
Under 16 16-24 25-49 50-64 65-74 75 or over Prefer not to say
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*B/A/C/BB = Black, African, Caribbean or Black British.
Where participants live: graph 4
Over 90% of attendees (n=587) lived in a City of Bristol postcode or in one of the three
surrounding local authorities (South Gloucestershire, North Somerset and Bath and North
East Somerset). Tourism-related income may have been brought to the city from the 4%
(n=26) that came from other areas of the UK or overseas.
511 (78.7%)
67 (10.3%)
9 (1.4%) 9 (1.4%) 15 (2.3%) 7 (1.1%)26 (4.0%)
5 (0.8%)0
100
200
300
400
500
600
Walk participants: ethnicities (n=649)No. participants
531
35 28 23 20 5 5 1 10
100
200
300
400
500
600
No. participants
Unitary authority or other home location
Walk participants: home postcodes (n=649)
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Self-reported disability
Forty-two people (6%) considered themselves to be disabled, 583 (90%) did not and 24
(4%) preferred not to say.
Walking behaviour
We asked three questions relating to participants’ self-reported ‘normal’ walking behaviour
(e.g. not during the festival). Their answers are represented in graphs 5 to 7.
Participants’ self-reported walking frequency: graph 5
Graph 5 indicates that about half of participants reported that they already typically walked
reasonably frequently - at least three times a week. However, encouragingly, BWF still
attracted many (n=294, 45%) that only walked once or twice a week, and 19 people (3%)
said that they ‘never’ walked.
Time participants spend walking: graph 6
It was an almost half-and-half split of people reporting that they typically did (n=352, 54%)
and didn’t (297, 46%) accrue at least 30 minutes of walking a day.
19 (3%)
158 (24%)
136 (21%)
336 (52%)
Walk participants: typicalwalking frequency (n=649)
Never Once a week Twice a week Three times a week
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The UK national guidelines (Department of Health, DoH, 2011) state that both younger
and older adults should aim to be at least moderately active, for at least 30 minutes, on at
least five days of the week. Older adults should particularly minimise the amount of time
they spend being sedentary because they always gain benefit from any movement: even
slow walkers would have benefited health-wise from their festival participation. This is
irrespective of any additional psycho-social benefits and the intensity with which
individuals exerted themselves. We did not ask about other forms of structured exercise,
lifestyle physical activity, active travel or sport in the short evaluation form. So it is quite
feasible that what appears to be a population that doesn’t meet the DoH guidelines may be
active in other ways.
Additionally, we discovered that two-thirds of people ‘never’ (n=165/649, 25.4%) or only
‘sometimes’ (n=268, 41.3%) walk in a group. Consequently, this format offered people the
opportunity to try this type of group activity which is associated with additional psycho-
social benefits (DoH, 2011). Belonging to a group doubles the odds of older people being
physically active (Crombie et al., 2004). Furthermore, not having an activity companion
has been shown to be a high-impact barrier to physical activity for older people living in
Bristol (Stathi et al., 2012).
Participants’ intention to increase walking: graph 7
We were also interested to know if there might be some sort of ‘legacy’ from the event in
terms of behaviour change. An impressive three-quarters of participants (n=482/649,
74.3%) thought the festival would encourage them to increase the amount they walk. A
minority said it wouldn’t (n=83, 12.8%) or that they weren’t sure (n=84, 12.9%). Although
intention to change behaviour can be a long way from actually managing to, and although
we only have a rough indication of how active participants already were, this is still very
encouraging.
30 (5%)
121 (19%)
146 (22%)
352 (54%)
Walk participants: how long theynormally walk for (n=649)
0 -10 mins/day 11-20 mins/day 21-30 mins/day >30 mins/day
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Qualitative data
A single, open-ended question asked participants if there was anything they wished to say
about their experience of BWF 2018, including improvements if it were run again.
Two hundred and eighty-seven of the 649 total survey respondents (44%) filled this in, and
41% of these provided or implied specific suggestions. We undertook simple, inductive
content analysis on the data which is a method that identifies emerging themes. All
quotations are verbatim and considered illustrative of the theme.
The overall message was overwhelmingly positive: comments were punctuated with
thanks and words such as “excellent”, “fantastic”, “enjoyable”, “great choice of walks”,
“informative”, and “well-organised”. Twenty-seven people praised their walk leader, often
naming them. There was a sense that people wanted ‘more of the same’ and, indeed, for
future festivals to mature to be ‘even better’.
“An excellent experience and congratulations to all involved in the organisation of
this event. Same again next year...”
“This year was excellent, much better than 2017.”
“Thank you for all your hard work and enthusiasm.”
“Really excellent - just keep going…”
“It was magical.”
“I feel so lucky to have taken part.”
“Truly wonderful experience taking part and renewing one's heart.”
482 (74%)
83 (13%)
84 (13%)
Walk participants: intention to walk more
Yes No Not sure
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“Please just keep doing it, so we can experience more from walking.”
There were fewer than five negative comments across all the material, and they covered
different subjects. This convincingly indicates that there were no significant problems with
the delivery of the festival.
“Stop businesses using events to promote themselves, charging for public free
spaces for money!”
“Explanations are not always followed on most walks, as well as lots being more of
a march especially The Ramblers.”
“It would’ve been much appreciated if the main organiser of the walk hadn’t arrived
15 minutes late … [had] printed out the list in alphabetical order before she arrived
and had a clipboard.”
Seven key themes were identified from the raw data and are described below: promotion
and media, learning, accessibility, physical activity benefits, social benefits, future funding
and evaluation.
Promotion and media
With just over one in five people mentioning the nature of the festival’s promotional activity,
this was by far the most dominant theme. Having a printed programme was highly-
appreciated, especially as one wasn’t produced last year.
“Very impressed with leaflet/brochure.”
“Much easier to have a printed programme.”
Generally, people wanted there to be much wider publicising, although one person noted
the improvement on last year.
“Seems to have been well publicised this year.”
“Somehow need to get it even more known. I still meet people who don't know
about it...”
Participants’ main suggestion for improvement was for the website: that a print-out of the
whole programme - inclusive of every walk and its features - be available for people
without computer access/literacy (and in addition to the online calendar).
“It wasn't until I was on one of the walks that a person told me that there were even
more walks listed on the website.”
It is important to explain that the online calendar had all the walks and events listed with
the most up-to-date available information - whereas the printed programme featured a
large selection thereof. Naturally, there has to be a point when a hard copy goes to print
and a line has to be drawn under inclusions and edits. The Project Coordinator tried to
make this as clear as possible in several ways - for example by including in the hard copy
version two ‘signposting’ sentences about how to get the very latest information on the
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web. Therefore, although this feedback is understandable, and there may be room for
improvement with longer preparation time and sufficient budget, we consider that this
situation was unavoidable and intrinsic to standard marketing practicalities - especially
when combined with the short time-span to organise the event as a whole: something that
a provider themselves reflects on later on in this report.
Learning
Over 40 comments were made around this theme, suggesting that people really enjoyed
the experience of learning something new as part-and-parcel of their walk. This related to
both exploring Bristol (e.g. finding things they’d never seen before), as well as gaining new
knowledge via themed walks - the ghost walk being mentioned more than once! People
seemed to want more educational walks in the future.
“A wonderfully informative introduction to unfamiliar - and familiar - parts of Bristol.”
“Lots of informative walks - very enjoyable. The Downs Ghost Roads walk was
fascinating.”
“I think it is a great way to keep fit and get to know Bristol better.”
“More local history and wildlife events please…”
Accessibility
Around the same number of people that commented on learning did so about walk
accessibility. This was mostly in a positive context and related to different aspects e.g. a
walk being perceived as ethnically-diverse or suitable for people with limited mobility.
There was an overall sense of getting a warm, inclusive welcome.
“Great multi-faith walk.”
“Definitely enjoyed today - opportunity to go ‘downhill route.’ Liked the challenge
[with] my walking frame.”
“The dog walk was great. We felt very welcome even though we don’t have a dog!”
“Good to have central walks.”
Nonetheless, a handful of accessibility-related suggestions were made.
“There is a lack of resting places – benches, even ‘perching’ bars that cyclists can
lock bikes onto.”
“More audio walks please…”
Access via public transport/active travel was mentioned the most - in that older people
wanted to be able to arrive by bus centrally using their free pass. Optimal timing of
morning walks is an important learning point in relation to the festival’s demographic, the
aim to achieve as many journeys to walk-starts as possible via public transport/active
travel and, indeed, some of our key partners’ target audiences.
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“Start times should be 11am since pensioners often cannot use their bus passes to
get there on time.”
Overall, participants complimented the wide variety of walk types. However, walk
frequency and pace, and there being as much variation in start times as possible still had
potential for improvement.
“More flat ones please!”
“A walk that's slower with organised meals please.”
“Go into various companies and promote it... Try to time the walks for one hour to
coincide with lunch hour.”
“Have the festival across two separate months [to enable] people to attend sessions
they couldn’t in the festival… Get the dates out earlier so [I can] book them out in
my diary.”
A few people mentioned that there should be more walks for children and younger people.
“Maybe something else for young children?”
“The Lamplighters storytelling was really fun and captivating for young and old
alike.”
Physical activity benefits
Five to eleven people made comments on the remaining themes, starting with the festival’s
role in promoting physical activity for health benefit.
“A great way to encourage you out of the armchair and into the outdoors!”
“A really important event which promotes activity and health.”
“Introduce some hill walks and walks to increase fitness.”
“More walking groups would be great. Good for fitness and social…”
Social benefits
Participants clearly enjoyed the social interaction with new and old faces.
“It's fab to be out and about meeting different people.”
“It was nice to see a few new faces.”
“Good to be able to chat to like-minded people.”
Future funding
Some participants vocalised their concern about future festival funding, disappointed that
Bristol City Council weren’t able to contribute more.
“Make sure the festival happens in 2019. Ensure council funding helps the festival.”
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It should be noted here that not only did the council offer a lot of in-kind support, but they
contributed financially via the Travelwest Fund - which provided a substantial proportion of
the overall BWF 2018 funding. Most participants would have not have been aware of this,
as Bristol City Council advised that only the Travelwest logo should be used on all
promotional materials in relation to their involvement. Some additional fundraising
suggestions were made, like charging for programmes and take-home maps of the routes
to be able to enjoy them again, or try more of the walks that were on offer.
“Fundraise early!”
“Please ask for voluntary donations. Most people would love to feel they are
making a difference...”
Evaluation
A few participants recognised that there might be some room for improvement on the
event evaluation form, in having an opportunity to provide feedback specific to each walk.
“This form doesn't ask which walk I'm on.”
5.3 Provider feedback
All walk and event providers were given the opportunity to complete an organiser survey,
which was sent via email link in early June 2018. Although completion wasn’t incentivised,
and some providers gave more than one contact name, 41 out of a maximum 74 filled it in.
This 55% response rate was very high as it is commonly accepted that survey data
collection typically yields around a 20% hit-rate.
Organisers’ reasons for taking part
Providers reported that they took part in BWF 2018 for a variety of reasons including to
increase numbers, reach new visitors/audiences, and to be part of a citywide/national
event. One organisation added that it was for “community engagement” and another
because “We believe that the more people that pray for the good of our city, the better!”.
Volunteer involvement: estimates
Although it was beyond the scope of this year’s resources to collect precise monitoring and
evaluation data from volunteers, providers were asked to estimate the approximate
number and age range of the people volunteering on their walk/s - which, like participants,
was predominantly older people. Only three (7%) of the activities didn’t have any volunteer
support. Volunteer support and involvement is clearly an integral, essential and highly
valuable ingredient of the festival’s implementation and success. And is obviously in line
with contemporary public policies to increase volunteering.
Satisfaction with festival organisation
We asked providers to give feedback on their event experience, via 20 questions - nine of
which were fixed-response and eleven of which were open-ended (qualitative).
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Organisers clearly felt highly-supported by in terms of BWF 2018’s promotional channels. All but two people (4.9%) answered ‘yes’ (95.1%, n=39) to this yes-no question. Satisfaction with event submission process: graph 8
We asked organisers what they thought of the process of registering their walk/event
details online in advance, it being the mechanism enabling them to run. Over 80% (n=33)
rated their level of satisfaction as 4/5 or 5/5 (very satisfied). No-one was very unsatisfied.
Satisfaction with marketing toolkit: graph 9
Satisfaction levels were identical for the marketing toolkit, with another 80% high
satisfaction rate.
18 (43.9%)
15 (36.6%)
8 (19.5%)
0 00
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
Very satisfied (5/5) 4/5 3/5 2/5 Very unsatisfied (1/5)
Satisfaction: event submission process(by no. of respondents, total=41)
18 (43.9%)
15 (36.6%)
8 (19.5%)
0 00
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
Very satisfied (5/5) 4/5 3/5 2/5 Very unsatisfied (1/5)
Satisfaction: organisers' marketing toolkit(by no. of respondents, total=41)
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Satisfaction with walk leaders’ toolkit: graph 10
Satisfaction with the leaders’ toolkit was only marginally less, with a couple of people
rating it as 2/5. However, over three-quarters of people were satisfied.
When people had been ‘very unsatisfied’ in any way, they were asked to expand. Although
no-one had actually said they were, eight people went on to give further feedback - with
the main two themes being around the providers’ packs and the online registration/event
submission process.
“Event submission process was a bit long-winded if submitting events for multiple
days.”
“[Include] the emergency contact details form as part of the sign-up process in
Eventbrite.”
“The submission process isn’t great when you are an event rather than a walk, as
the process is understandably geared towards walks.”
“I couldn’t get the online form to work properly and needed help from the
organisers.”
Suggestions for improvement next year
One question asked whether, if respondents didn’t feel well-supported by BWF’s
promotional channels, why: only five people commented. Given this low number, these
findings have been subsumed under the forthcoming themes - although one ad-hoc
comment is relevant to highlight here:
17 (41.5%)
14 (34.1%)
8 (19.5%)
2 (4.9%)
00
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
Very satisfied (5/5) 4/5 3/5 2/5 Very unsatisfied (1/5)
Satisfaction: event submission process(by no. of respondents, total=41)
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“Everything was rushed and was very last minute, but all came good in the end.”
Building on from the emphasis on the website launch, then its improvement, through 2016
and 2017, and the related recommendations in both evaluation reports (Bristol City
Council, 2016, Lowman et al., 2017), the focus of our media evaluation was on the site.
When asked which of its features organisers found most useful, there was consensus
around the online calendar - where you could see the most up-to-date information on all
walks and events. Providers also really appreciated being able to check their own listings.
Others gave feedback that the site was well laid-out, clearly-presented and included
“lovely big images”.
“It was all really useful!”
“Calendar, good to see easily when walks were happening.”
“I didn't really use it myself but several people told me they thought it was a vast
improvement on the previous website - which is good!”
Excluding people who wrote “none really”, N/A etc, and the process of applying to host a
walk described above, the website features that people found least useful were: searching
not being easy enough (e.g. inability to find walks on specific days), and not being able to
find the participants’ evaluation survey. Other ad-hoc suggestions resonated with some of
the walkers feedback:
“Unable to download a PDF version of the walks programme for those who don't
have internet access.”
“Would have perhaps been good to make the start (and end) locations on the
events link through to a map?”
Although every effort was made to address suggestions for improvement mentioned in the
2017 report, the Project Coordinator did highlight certain challenges such as only having
short timescales for website development - as part of the bigger picture of the narrow
window to organise the festival as a whole, despite Bristol City Council’s support in this
respect - and providers making last-minute changes to walk details.
When asked how their offer was promoted, and what they found most useful/helpful about
this, 15 of 39 providers explained that they’d done their own promotion - some using social
media. This took place alongside BWF’s and partners’ promotional activities.
We also asked them what stopped them from linking to the BWF from their own site or
following the Facebook page and/or Twitter account, if that was the case. In descending
order, barriers were:
• Technology e.g. don’t use Facebook/Twitter, have a website etc (nine comments).
• Not having enough time (three comments).
• Their employers’ website policies/restrictions (two comments).
• Their own resources, walk spaces filling up quickly, the potential to confuse their
audience in the context of their own walk offers (one comment each).
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Organisations were asked to share what they’d gained from being involved in the festival
and provided a lot of immensely positive feedback on this. Six themes emerged from this
analysis: promotion/publicity, new walkers, community awareness, ‘being part’ of
something, organiser networking/contacts and pleasure.
Promotion/publicity
Organisers appreciated the promotion and publicity they obtained from having been
involved. This is likely to have had a positive (direct or indirect) impact in the days or
weeks afterwards in terms of initiation into or more regular participation in providers’
regular activities. Indeed, some said this was the case in their feedback. It would be worth
considering if/how we could follow up, and consequently get a better sense of this, should
BWF be repeated.
“Local people more aware of our churches being open as visitor attractions [and of]
the Churches Conservation Trust, and the work we do.”
“It definitely helped put Creative Workspace on the map for new people who didn't
know we were here.”
“Promotion of Badock's Wood [and a new walk trialled]: several people had never
been before … and would not have found out about it otherwise … [They] might not
have thought somewhere so lovely is in the locality.”
New walkers (and walks)
Linked to this, some providers recruited new members, started new routes, generated
extra income or attracted new faces to their group/s.
“More books sold. 25 people enjoyed a very good walk - some of whom had never
walked as far before.”
“A new permanent women’s walking football session for Gloucestershire Football
Association.”
“New visitors.”
“We attracted new members to the group.”
‘Being part of something bigger’
Some organisers mentioned the advantage of contributing to something bigger than the
normal boundaries of their standard offer.
“Being part of a Bristol event.”
“The opportunity to be part of a city-wide festival.”
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Community awareness
Providers appreciated the opportunity to have made links with their local communities and
target populations.
“The opportunity for local residents to be involved in a new activity at a taster
session level, without committing to a group.”
“Increased community awareness of Clean Air Bishopston.”
Organiser networking/contacts
The opportunity to connect with similar providers came through strongly.
“New opportunity to link with a partner organisation … It definitely helped put
Creative Workspace on the map…”
“BWF 2018 allowed us to form links with walk leaders which will, in turn, help us
develop the concept of promoting three walking hubs within easy reach by rail of
Bristol Temple Meads: Bradford-on-Avon, Severn Beach and Yatton.”
“Allowed us to engage with a group of local stakeholders that we would have
otherwise not reached. Really great experience and positively received. Thanks for
the support.”
“Connections to a new group of people supporting walking in the city.”
Pleasure
A couple of organisers brought a ‘human touch’ to their experience: they simply enjoyed
being involved, and seeing others having fun at the event.
“Pleasure in seeing others get to know and enjoy the walk. Recognition that it is a
good and worthwhile project.”
“Satisfaction from relevant local events and groups tying in with a city-wide festival.”
The large amount of positive feedback can be interpreted as an indicator of success –
especially given that from the point that funding was confirmed (20 January 2018) to the
start of the festival (1 May 2018), there were only 70 working days to organise the event
from start to finish. This included the transfer to a voluntary and community sector provider
(Linkage Network/Active Ageing Bristol) - who naturally have incomparable infrastructural
resource when compared with Bristol City Council.
Importantly, all 41 providers wanted to be involved if a festival were held again next year.
5.4 Evaluation strengths and limitations
Strengths
• Both Participant-Reported Experience Measures were mixed-methods and targeted
the two key stakeholder groups.
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• The number of participant survey responses (n=649) dramatically exceeded those
collected last year (n=90 in 2017, i.e. a 621% increase), albeit the festival having
also attracted more walkers. A relatively large volume of helpful qualitative material
was elicited, giving a valuable indication of the experiences of many participants,
and the event’s tremendous success.
• Analysis of the raw data was undertaken retrospectively by an evaluation consultant
who is published in physical activity and well-being research - but was not at all
involved in the planning, organisation or operational delivery of the event.
• Whilst we were able to take useful learning from the 2017 BWF report (e.g. in
producing an A5 size participant evaluation form, rather than a larger version that
did not incentivise people to fill it out), we consider the BWF 2018 analysis to be
substantially more robust and insightful than the previous evaluation reports.
Limitations
• The evaluation data is unavoidably self-report and cross-sectional.
• Despite enthusiastic attempts to encourage providers to assist with distribution of
participant surveys, returns weren’t collected from everyone so can’t be claimed to
be fully representative.
• Participant responses may have been ‘skewed’ by there not being a questionnaire
per walk/event. Some people clearly attended more than one and may have had a
different experience on each. Equally though, there was very limited resource and
time to plan the evaluation as a whole.
• There may be potential to increase survey response rates. However, choosing to
focus on this could have substantial resource implications e.g. substantially more
manual data entry for hard copies (which still needs to be an option for participants),
especially if the festival attracted higher even more people and providers in future.
• Questions about participants’ usual physical activity patterns didn’t accurately
reflect the UK national guidelines for physical activity (DoH, 2011).
• Survey questions and measures were not fully aligned with festival aims and
objectives. Furthermore, the evaluation wasn’t supported by a logic model or formal
evaluation plan. This is best done with key stakeholders as soon as funding has
been agreed and operational planning discussions start - and certainly involving
someone with evaluation expertise/experience. However, these are all aspects that
could be improved upon if repeated, and with adequate budget.
6. Marketing and Communications Report
Overview
The marketing plan was managed and delivered by the Project Coordinator, with
assistance from several external agencies/services who were commissioned to help
deliver elements of the marketing plan - including PR and media, branding, print,
photography and website development. This was mostly due to the lack of a dedicated
press and media officer, designer, photographer or web developer within the festival’s core
management team.
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Festival promotion for 2018 was directed through four key media channels - print, public
and press relations, online and social media.
An updated marketing toolkit was produced and sent to walk/event providers. This
included guidance on how to publicise a walk/event using local press, online and social
media, template posters and links to further resources. However, most providers continued
to rely almost completely on BWF to promote their walk/event.
Part of the marketing process involved a handover of the BWF marketing channels from
Bristol City Council to the new festival organisers (Linkage Network/Active Ageing Bristol).
Whilst most of this was fairly straightforward, it did take time to resolve some more
complex issues around accessing the channels, Google Analytics, costs, data protection
(including the new GDPR regulations).
In light of the above, and the costs associated with outsourcing some of these services,
there was a limited advertising budget available. Therefore, marketing spend was
focussed on the recommendations made in the 2017 BWF evaluation report (Lowman et
al., 2017). These consisted of improving and updating the website, producing a printed
programme, distribution, digital materials, photography, blog content and Facebook
advertising.
Below is a summary of the activities which took place.
6.1 Branding
Due to the move away from direct council management and delivery of BWF, the logo was
refreshed slightly and a new brand developed to engage a wider audience. The brand
used images and words to form an emotional connection with people, and to highlight the
‘experience’ that walkers would get - rather than the simple ‘act’ of walking. It was very
much aimed at encouraging non-walkers, whilst still engaging those who had participated
in previous festivals.
Six image-based icons - based on the festival themes (art and creativity, education and
learning, health and wellbeing, history and architecture, nature and wildlife and walking
sports) - were developed to visually highlight what the walker might see and feel on a walk,
as well as highlighting the accessibility of the walks.
6.2 Print materials and distribution
BWF 2018’s approach to print materials was an improvement on last year, despite the
reduced marketing budget:
• 6,000 A5 programmes and 500 A4 posters were designed, printed and distributed
across Bristol, to the Bristol Tourist Information Centre, local GP surgeries (57),
leisure centres and swimming pools (17), community centres (50), libraries (27) and
other key outlets via our partners and providers. Further commercial distribution by
Pear Distribution sited them in 30 outlets (i.e. city-wide tourist, transport and retail
outlets).
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• 11 A3 premier poster sites secured via Pear Distribution for four weeks’ advertising
in key locations throughout the city, such as train stations, leading shopping centres
(e.g. Cabot Circus) and supermarkets.
• 5,000 A5 double-sided surveys were designed, printed and distributed to providers.
• Old promotional stock from last year’s event was used for the walk leader packs,
including branded drawstring bags and water bottles.
6.3 Digital screens
Digital promotional slides were created to help promote the festival on the following
outdoor and indoor TV screens:
• Big Screen Bristol (outdoor).
• Bristol Tourist Information (indoor).
• M Shed (indoor).
• Various GP surgeries (indoor).
6.4 PR and media
This was achieved through the activity of both the Project Coordinator and marketing
agency, 42 Group. They were commissioned to assist with creating a PR/content plan,
writing up case studies, sourcing and writing up celebrity blogs, features and writing and
distributing a photocall and press release.
This year the festival generated the following press coverage:
• Eight radio slots (versus one in 2017)
• One piece in the Bristol Post
• One piece in The Bristol Magazine
• Two pieces in Bristol 24/7 (versus one in 2017).
Despite the extensive radio coverage, and improvement on last year’s hard copy
distribution, it was slightly disappointing that we did not get any TV coverage. However,
although both ITV West and Made in Bristol had planned to attend the launch event, a
high-profile court case on the same day meant that they were unfortunately unable to
attend in the end.
Six case studies were sourced to support the media activity.
See ‘Appendix H’ for the full PR and media summary.
6.5 Blogs, case studies and features
To amplify the festival messages a range of blogs, case studies and features were
produced and promoted via the festival website and social media channels:
• Six ‘My favourite walk’ blog posts: posts featuring a Bristol personality or celebrity,
blogger or charity rep, for example: Mayor Marvin Rees, comedian Mark Olver and
model and TV presenter, Amy Willerton.
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• Two ‘Bristol Walk Fest’ blog posts: ‘Bristol Walk Fest: Top 10 highlight’ and ‘Bristol
Walk Fest: Bank Holiday walks’.
• Two general blog posts to tie in with national campaigns and marketing
opportunities: ‘National Walking Month: Top 10 highlights’ and ‘Walk to School
Week: Seven top tips to get children walking’.
• Six case studies: posts featuring local walking champions, local walking route
creators, walking and dementia, walking and complex post-traumatic stress disorder
(CTPSD) and ‘my favourite walking sport’.
• Two ‘Bristol Walk Fest’ features: ‘Pick up a Bristol Walk Fest 2018 programme’ and
‘Walk Bris Way’.
6.6 Social media
Social media was used to engage the public and partners prior to and during the festival -
with regular updates on Facebook and Twitter encouraging providers and participants to
promote and share their experiences using #BristolWalkFest.
The use of the hashtag and a robust tweet schedule is enough to promote the festival on
this platform. 42 Group used Buffer to manage and pre-schedule a small number of posts
on Facebook and Twitter. Manual posts were also posted to keep it ‘organic’.
The social media channels were managed by the Project Coordinator.
A new Twitter account (www.twitter.com/briswalkfest18) was set up for BWF 2018 (30
January 2018), as Bristol City Council had previously used its own Twitter account to
promote the festival. This meant we had to build a follower base from scratch and, for the
purpose of this report, we are unable to compare data with last year’s.
One hundred and forty-five tweets were issued from 30 January onwards and into June
2018.
Twitter generated positive results (30 March 2018 to 1 June 2018) which are outlined
below:
• 152,500 tweet impressions, an average of 1,700 per day and a total of 2,613
engagements. Our engagement rate was 1.9%.
• 353 new followers.
• 513 link clicks: on average, we earned six link clicks per day.
• 436 retweets: on average, we earned five retweets per day.
Our top tweet achieved the following interaction: 17,437 impressions; 674 total
engagements; 16 link clicks; 16 details expands; 18 likes; 2 Retweets; 1 hashtag clicks,
and 601 media engagements.
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It should also be noted that 42 Group managed to secure an interview with Amy Willerton
for the blog and she retweeted our message to her 257,000 followers - a great
achievement.
The BWF Facebook page (www.facebook.com/bristolwalkfest) was handed over to the
new festival organisers on 15 January 2018 and had 1,358 page likes and 1,344 page
followers.
Facebook generated positive results which are outlined below for the period 15 January –
1 June 2018:
• 155 posts (versus 140 in 2017, an 11% increase).
• 89,077 people reached (versus 41,084 in 2017, a 117% increase).
• 1,587 page likes (the number of people who liked our page) - 229 new likes (versus,
for the same period last year, 208 new page likes – a 10% increase).
• 4,246 post engagements (number of times users engaged with our posts through
likes, comments, shares and more) - versus 1,981 in 2017 (a 114% increase).
Facebook advertising
Facebook advertising campaigns were set to focus on website click-throughs to try and
maximise the number of people visiting and looking at the full programme:
• Six ads were created and scheduled for 18 to 25 May 2018.
• They targeted anyone within 20km of Bristol.
• ‘Interest targeting’ included: architecture, Bansky, nordic walking, outdoor
recreation, walking, hiking, cultural history, wildlife, dog walking, cultural heritage,
fitness, health and wellness.
The Facebook campaign achieved the following results:
• Total reach: 40,067.
• Total impressions: 45,371.
• The most popular ad was the health and wellbeing ad. The least popular was the
walking sports ad.
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• Cost per result ranged from 26p - 64p, with the cheapest being the generic BWF ad
and the most expensive Active10.
Since BWF haven’t run Facebook ads before, it isn’t possible to make a comparison.
However, 42 Group have advised that, in their experience of working with other
clients/events, this is an excellent result.
For the budget allocated to this project there was significant achievement and reach.
Given the limited spend, we received extremely good value - particularly when balanced
with the content and social media support in-kind which we received from 42 Group.
6.7 Website
A new website for BWF was launched in 2017 and was the focus and target destination for
all online activity.
Due to the short lead in time and limited budget, the Project Coordinator decided that it
was best not to move the existing WordPress website to a new supplier for 2018. Instead
they commissioned the current supplier (Bristol City Council) to help with website design,
hosting and training.
The Project Coordinator also commissioned Aurora to populate the online calendar with
details of all the individual walks and events.
A number of design changes were made to the website which included the site map (e.g.
added a ‘News’ section) and calendar of walks and events (e.g. changed/updated fields
and filters, and added a photograph to all listings).
The website was managed and updated by the Project Coordinator which included
sourcing content, writing and adding new content, resizing photographs for use on the site,
and updating event/walk listings to include cancellations and those which were fully
booked.
The source of the statistics presented in this section is a Google Analytics website data
report. The figures below cover the period April 1 to June 1 2018, and are compared to the
same period in 2017:
• Sessions (views) have gone up to 13,412 from 11,841 - a 13.3% increase on last
year.
• New users rose 12.6% - from 7,677 to 8,646.
• Page views decreased from 54,755 to 50,021 - an 8.6% decrease.
• The number of pages viewed per session decreased from 4.62 to 3.73 (down
19.3%)
• The average time spent on the site decreased from 3 minutes 55 seconds to 3
minutes 1 second.
• The bounce rate (people leaving the site on the first page they see) increased from
38% to 50%.
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How people are reaching the website
• Direct traffic (e.g. people going straight to our website) decreased from 43.4% to
21.8%, with the total number of such traffic also decreasing from 3,830 to 1,494 (a
61% decrease).
• Referral traffic - traffic direct from other websites - dropped slightly from 2,793
sessions to 2,259 (a 19.1% decrease).
• Slightly fewer referrals came from the Visit Bristol website in comparison to 2017.
• Social media traffic increased from 16% to 24% of the total traffic, and the number
of sessions rose from 1,031 to 2,293 (a 122% increase) – suggesting that the social
media advertising push has been a great success.
From the above, we interpret that, overall, the website saw a decrease in most areas. This
seems likely to have been largely due to there not being a printed programme in 2017.
However, it is also possible that the wider marketing and PR, programmes and press
coverage wasn’t enough in leading people to visit the site. Some of the analytics may also
be explained by the site being more easily-navigable and clearly-presented than in
previous years - meaning that people needed to spend less time on it to get the
information they needed.
Conversely, the large increase in hits via social media was considerable, although not
entirely unexpected in the wider picture around communication methods.
6.8 Discovery pathways: graph 11
This graph shows that the most popular way of finding out about the festival was through
walking or community groups (n=204 people, 31.4% of all 649 respondents). This was
followed closely by word of mouth (n=190, 29.3%), then the poster/festival programme,
website, ‘other’, social media and newspapers – the latter being a discovery pathway for
only 11 people (1.7%). These findings indicate that, although we know community
organisations used a variety of advertising methods themselves, they - alongside word of
mouth - are more powerful agents than either traditional or modern/digital methods in
spreading the word about BWF. Interestingly, these findings generally add support to our
interpretations in the last section - in the pattern being an overall decrease in web traffic.
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NB: Respondents could tick more than one response option.
6.9 Photography
Jeni Nott was commissioned by the Project Coordinator to undertake photography at
seven walks and events, and one photo call. The purpose of the commission was to
document the festival and obtain a library of photographs which can be used on the
festival channels in the future.
6.10 Active 10 Challenge
The Project Coordinator worked in partnership with Public Health England to help raise
awareness about their Active 10 app as part of the festival offer. This involved setting up a
web page on the BWF 2018 website. This received 201 page views including ‘organic’ and
‘paid’ posts via the festival’s social media channels.
7. Conclusions and recommendations
We now draw some conclusions about BWF 2018 and make four sets of
recommendations going forwards.
The evaluation showed that, overall, the festival was a great success. Given the late
confirmation of funding, short lead-in time, reduced marketing budget and small festival
core team - without the infrastructural resource from Bristol City Council as the previous
organiser - what we achieved and delivered was impressive. Our mixed-methods
evaluation, drawing from three key data sources - participant and provider surveys, and
website analytics - has evidenced that there was:
• Overwhelmingly positive feedback, satisfaction and gratitude from participants.
• Very strong positive feedback from walk/event provider-partners.
204 (31.4%)190 (29.3%)
162 (25%)
116 (17.9%)
88 (13.6%)
57 (8.8%)
11 (1.7%)
0
50
100
150
200
250
How found out about Walk Fest 2018(n=649 respondents*)
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• Important improvements in terms of re-introducing a printed programme, the BWF
website, media (particularly social media) and marketing.
• Several operational and evaluation-related ‘lessons learnt’ which can feed into the
planning and delivery of any future Bristol Walk Fest events.
7.2 Recommendations
7.2.1 Recommendations: festival content and organisation
• Allow more forward planning time for future festivals - including to avoid many
incumbent marketing and delivery challenges in needing to operate in ‘last minute’
mode.
• Source adequate funds to resource a full-time Project Coordinator role as well as
contractors and consultants as required. This should additionally avoid pro-bono
hours accumulating - provided by the likes of the Project Coordinator and various
contractors - to be able to deliver, implement and evaluate the project in a thorough,
timely and successful way.
• Consider a management fee for the event lead.
7.2.2 Recommendations: marketing and publicity
• Increase investment into marketing for future activities - to extend the reach of the
festival and its impact and legacy.
• Invest in further brand designs e.g. a new logo to replace the current outdated one.
• Investigate the options around providers entering and managing their own
walks/events through the website.
• Investigate moving the website to a new supplier, as the costs (£55/hour) to update
the existing website was comparatively high when compared to other web design
services.
• Try to find event sponsors to fund the bill for marketing activity.
• Get more celebrities and influential individuals on board to help increase the
festival’s reach even further.
• Engage local influencers/bloggers: with more time and investment, we could get the
local blogging community involved in creating content and promoting the festival.
• Co-ordinate a bigger launch event - which could perhaps brainstorm ideas to make
it more ‘newsworthy’ e.g. celebrity involvement, interesting locations, more unique
case studies).
• Set up an e-newsletter to help promote BWF.
• Establish the Google Analytics we want to extract by setting up a dashboard in the
account.
• Produce a printed programme which includes even more of/as many of the walks
and events as possible. Also, print more copies which appeals to most of what
indeed transpired to be our audience: older people. (Having more time and
resources should facilitate better inclusion of event details across both media, being
the main request from participant findings).
• Invest in securing a full order and distribution service for festival marketing
materials.
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• Use a hashtag tracker like Tweetreach to give more detailed performance statistics
about the #BristolWalkFest.
• Update BWF terms and conditions and agreements by making it a requirement for
walk/event providers to use the logo on all their walk/event publicity, and to
undertake a minimum level of marketing and promotion through their own channels.
7.2.3 Recommendations: evaluation
• Plan the evaluation as soon as funding is in place and operational discussions start,
and review it regularly.
• Obtain expert advice at outset - to help set clear evaluation aims and objectives,
ensure approaches and questions accurately reflect festival aims and objectives
and, alongside any communication and marketing and delivery strategies
successfully attract target audience/s.
• Budget for dedicated evaluation capacity - to be as impartial as possible. If an
‘internal’ evaluator, ensure they can remain independent as possible from the
Project Coordinator or a freelance consultant.
• Involve key stakeholders to develop and gain early consensus on evaluation plans
and aiming for appropriate and representative volunteer and public involvement.
(This also applies on an operational level).
• Develop a logic model e.g. use recommended resources on
http://www.nhsevaluationtoolkit.net/evaluation-cycle/identify/ (accessed 24/8/18).
• Repeat and improve the two mixed-methods Participant-Reported Experience
Measures (PREMS) with potentially better questions: more sensitive demographic
questions, better alignment of questions with UK national physical activity
guidelines and festival aims and objectives, proportionate follow-up to the 2018
event, and perhaps inclusion of walkers’ personal goals. However, be careful to
prioritise well and avoid unnecessary participant burden which would likely
disincentivise survey completion.
• Carefully consider whether to distribute evaluation forms at each separate specific
walk/event – or, alternatively, to include the opportunity to add comments on the
evaluation form allowing respondents to specify which walk/s they’re referring to.
• Carefully consider collecting better quality volunteer monitoring and evaluation data:
notably case studies may be part of a resource-dependent approach to including of
such valuable data.
• Incentivise participant feedback with another free prize draw and consider
affordable incentivisation for walk/event providers - to be able to collect more robust
monitoring data and achieve an even better response rate.
• Following the principles of best practice and transparency, share this year’s and
future evaluation findings/reports via multiple dissemination routes e.g. the website,
other media, and the wide network of stakeholders (walk/event organisers, partners,
funders etc). This should also build an audit trail, data bench-marking and history of
BWF - to facilitate easier and more meaningful comparisons with historic
data/findings.
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7.2.4 Other recommendations
• Link with First Bus and GWR about advertising on their networks (especially the
Severn Beach line) and getting discounted travel for walkers.
• Include Bus Link walks in the programme offer.
• More lunch time walks/events to enable people who work full-time to attend.
• Carefully consider linking with Bristol hotels to offer accommodation discount deals,
being mindful that people did not take up this year’s offers.
• Explore future opportunities with Cotswold Outdoor and/or others in terms of
sponsorship, discount deals and survey incentivisation.
• Explore if printable maps, online routes and a guide to ‘self-guided’ walks could be
provided.
• Aim to be even more inclusive in terms of better BAME representation, disability
and mobility-friendly features and information, guided walks for blind or partially-
sighted people, ‘bus-friendly’ start times, and a wider children’s/intergenerational
offer.
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Appendix A - Infographic (main findings)
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Appendix B - List of walk/event providers
1. A Forgotten Landscape
2. Admiral Plum
3. Ambition Lawrence Weston
4. Arnos Vale Cemetery Trust
5. Avon Gorge and Downs Wildlife Project and Friends of the Downs and Avon Gorge
6. Avonmouth Wacky-Walkers
7. Brave Bold Drama Community Interest Company
8. Bristol City Community Trust
9. Bristol City Council
10. Bristol Civic Society
11. Bristol Dementia Action Alliance
12. Bristol Flyers Community
13. Bristol Jets Community
14. Bristol Libraries
15. Bristol Multi Faith Forum
16. Bristol Nordic Walking
17. Bristol Orienteering Klub
18. Bristol Ramblers
19. Bristol Rocks
20. Bristol Rovers Community Trust
21. Bristol Rugby Community Foundation
22. Bristol South Skyline Walk Group
23. Bristol Sport Foundation
24. Bristol United Walking Football Club
25. Bristol Walking Alliance
26. Brunel’s SS Great Britain
27. ClairCity Bristol (University of the West of England)
28. Clean Air Bishopston
29. Clevedon Ramblers
30. Clifton Suspension Bridge Trust
31. Forest of Avon Trust
32. Freelance Mum
33. Friends of Badock’s Wood
34. Friends of Brandon Hill
35. Friends of the Avon New Cut
36. Friends of the Downs
37. Friends of Troopers Hill
38. Gloucestershire County Football Association
39. Gloucestershire Cricket Board
40. Go Foraging
41. Hartcliffe Health and Environment Action Group
42. In Your Dog House
43. Incredible Edible Bristol
44. Inner City and East Bristol Health Team
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45. Jacobs Wells Community Hub
46. JustJog
47. Knightstone Housing
48. Knowle West Health Park
49. LGBT Bristol
50. Living Streets
51. Lockleaze and Horfield Strollers
52. M Shed
53. Man Food Project/University of Southampton
54. Norton Radstock Ramblers
55. Parkwood Leisure
56. Robin Tetlow
57. Saint Stephen’s and Holy Trinity Hotwells
58. Southern Links Children’s Centre
59. Southmead Development Trust
60. St George Strollers
61. St Monica Trust
62. Stanfords Bristol
63. Sustrans
64. The Architecture Centre
65. The Churches Conservation Trust
66. The Severnside Community Rail Partnership
67. University of Bristol
68. Wellspring Healthy Living Centre
69. Wild Dye Garden
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Appendix C - Bristol Walk Fest 2018 Steering Group
A steering group made up of these partners met monthly to help support and guide the
project.
• Active Ageing Bristol (Karen Lloyd)
• Freelance Project Coordinator (Kerry Morgan)
• Bristol City Council Public Health
• Bristol City Council Transport
• Bristol City Council Neighbourhoods
• Bristol Civic Society
• Bristol Ramblers
• Bristol Walking Alliance
• Clean Air Bishopston
• Destination Bristol
• Forest of Avon Trust
• Knowle West Health Park
• LinkAge Network
• Living Streets
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Appendix D - ‘Destination Bristol’ marketing report
Bristol Walk Fest event listing in the official 2018 Visitor Guide
• Print run of 370,000 copies for 2018.
Bristol Walk Fest event listing on the Visit Bristol website
• Number of hits - 5,121.
• Number of times displayed in a search - 1,244.
• Number of times referred to Bristol Walk Fest website - 401.
E-news - Bristol events in May - 12 April
• Audience - local tourism business and travel providers.
• Number of subscribers - 156.
• Open rate - 52 (34.4%).
• Click rate - 26 (17.2%). Blog post (top 10 highlights of Walk Fest) on the Visit Bristol website - 23 April
• Number of hits - 861. Consumer e-news - 24 April
• Audience - consumers and visitors
• Number of subscribers - 35,714.
• Open rate - 6,146 (17.2%).
• Total clicks - 1,470 (4.1%).
• Bristol Walk Fest article clicks -100. Social media engagement (April and May) Twitter
• Number of posts - 13.
• Impressions (number of times users saw the Tweet on Twitter) - 26,887.
• Engagements (number of times a user has interacted with a Tweet) - 401. Facebook
• Number of posts - 2.
• Impressions (number of users who had any Posts enter their screen) - 13,602.
• Engagements (number of times a user has engaged with Posts) - 558.
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Appendix E - About the authors and declared interests
Jo Coulson Jo was the freelance Evaluation Consultant for BWF 2018. She is an evaluation specialist with VCS evaluation and public health project delivery experience. She has expertise in advising on the full evaluation cycle: from start (bid development) to finish (dissemination), helping organisations co-produce evaluation plans, logic models and evaluation questions to be able to conduct robust and proportionate impact measurement. Jo has strong mixed- methods analysis and report-writing skills, and particularly enjoys working with qualitative data. Jo’s freelance clients have included The South West Evaluator Forum (for project management of the 'Public and Patient Involvement in Evaluation Guidelines', Age UK South Gloucestershire (The Integrated Care Service), The University of Bristol (‘Plain English for Academics’ courses) and Close Asset Management (‘Healthy living in retirement' sessions). Jo also has vast experience in: academic physical activity and wellbeing research and pragmatic evaluation - especially with older people. She was Senior Research Associate for the seminal ‘Older People and Active Living’ projects at The University of Bristol - in the academic department that achieved overall highest performance in its category for the Research Excellence Framework 2014. (These studies were the fore-runners of the highly-regarded Project ACE, Active, Connected and Engaged Communities.) Jo has a four-sided publications and presentations list with several first authorships and many peer-reviewed papers. Jo has most recently been employed in Research/Evaluation Officer positions at Penny Brohn UK and within Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire STP – where she advised healthcare commissioners on incorporating evaluation into their primary care and /social prescribing interventions. You can read more about Jo on LinkedIn.
• Declared interests: Jo is an Active Ageing Bristol steering group member. However, she did not have any role in BWF 2018’s steering group, operational delivery or evaluation design. When contracted to lead on the retrospective evaluation, she also had negligible festival background knowledge and didn’t participate in the festival.
Kerry Morgan Kerry was the freelance Project Coordinator for Bristol Walk Fest 2018. She is a freelance marketing and communications consultant who works with a range of small to medium size businesses, specialising in sports, health and leisure, to help shape marketing and communication strategies. Kerry has more than 12 years’ experience in public sector marketing. Prior to becoming a freelance consultant, she was a Marketing and Communications Officer at Bristol City Council.
• Declared interests: Bristol Walk Fest 2018 Project Coordinator, Active Ageing Bristol steering group member.
You can read more about Kerry on LinkedIn.
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Appendix F - Recommendations from 2017 (‘They said, we did’)
The recommendations in the left-hand column below are taken from the BWF 2017
Evaluation Report (Lowman et al., 2017). The right-hand column lists what we did and/or
had the budget and capacity to action or implement for BWF 2018. If content is
asterisked*, we were unable to meet this recommendation and explain why.
Table 1: Progress since Bristol Walk Fest 2017
‘They said’ ‘We did’
Planning
Review objectives in line with public health outcomes to be achieved.
*Change in festival management unfortunately meant there wasn’t time to review.
Ensure budget sign off by September. *Funding wasn’t approved until late January 2018. This was largely due to the uncertainty around finding a new organiser to deliver the festival.
Festival content
Ensure the Project Coordinator has outreach time to target under-represented communities.
✓ In conjunction with the LinkAge Network project officer, walks were set up to target under-represented communities, such as Dementia Friendly and Wheelchair Accessible walks.
Review the theming and grading of walks, and other ways to improve the clarity of a potential walker’s expectations.
✓ Introduced two new themes (‘education and learning’ and ‘walking sports’) and one new walk grade (fairly easy walks). Revised the walk grade descriptions to make it easier for potential walkers to choose a suitable walk.
For online programme development, send out forms later to reduce number of changes to programme.
✓ Emailed providers approximately 12 weeks before the festival with a link to the ‘Event Submission Form’, giving them the opportunity to proof their print/online listings.
Amend Eventbrite form according to feedback.
✓ Used Google Forms instead of Eventbrite which we found very user friendly. Revised the ‘Event Submission Form’ to make it quicker and easier to submit them.
Allow more time to promote the ‘mile a day’ challenge.
*Capacity/short lead-in time meant we weren’t able to manage this. But this could still be worked upon with sufficient time and budget as a part of a continuous cycle of festival improvement.
Support for walk providers
Run optional workshops (and create a film of it) for walk leaders - providing a brief introduction to: walk leading, risk assessment, promoting their walks, using our new website and disability awareness and inclusion.
✓ As above - although, despite not being able to create a film, we addressed many of these recommendations in other ways e.g. by providing organisers’ packs and improved toolkits.
Introduce a ‘walk providers’ agreement’. ✓ A set of Terms and Conditions were included within the ‘Event Submission
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‘They said’ ‘We did’
Form’: providers were asked to tick on submission.
Meet as many organisers face-to-face as possible.
*Capacity/short lead-in time meant we weren’t able to manage this. But this could still be worked upon with sufficient time and budget as a part of a continuous cycle of festival improvement.
Marketing and publicity
Improve the external website to ensure user-friendliness and the ability to print off a whole PDF programme or individual walk details.
✓ Updated the website and made a number of key improvements to aid usability. A printed programme was produced and distributed. The online calendar provided details of all individual walks/events.
Review the need for a printed programme to promote walks and events.
✓ Managed to secure external funding from Bristol Ageing Better to help cover the cost of producing a printed programme. This transpired to be a very important achievement in light of the appreciative feedback we received from both providers and participants, many of whom were older and needed this form of inclusivity.
Discuss with Ramblers or other external organisation if they would be able to produce a printed brochure.
✓ As above.
Develop connections with local bloggers. *We weren’t able to develop this as much as we would have liked but started building these relationships, with two bloggers. This could still be improved upon with sufficient time and budget - as a part of a continuous cycle of festival improvement.
Brief news items could deliver audiences to the website for updates, walking tips and ideas.
✓ Developed a ‘News’ section on the BWF website which included blogs from local celebrities talking about their favourite Bristol walks. Also, features to coincide with key announcements, case studies and press releases.
Consider setting up a Twitter account. ✓ Done.
Consider value of creating one or several individual events on Facebook itself as ‘event highlights’ - as another way of promoting or echoing the flavour of walks at main site. But be wary not to dilute focus of event management at the main website.
✓ Encouraged providers to create a Facebook event using their own Facebook account - which we then added to the BWF Facebook events calendar.
Future budget holders should consider spending a small sum on Facebook advertising to present the new offer directly to Bristol’s Facebook audience and beyond.
✓ Ran a Facebook advertising campaign for a week.
Evaluation
Consider a follow-up survey to walk/event organisers to collect views.
✓ Done.
Improve the return rate of evaluation forms ✓ Offered an incentive - a £100 gift
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‘They said’ ‘We did’
(last year only 90 forms were returned). voucher, courtesy of Cotswold Outdoor Bristol - to encourage attendees to complete a survey. Both online and print versions of the surveys were made available and 649 responses received, leading to an impressive 621% increase in response rate.
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Appendix G - References
Bristol City Council/Stuart Riddle (2016). Bristol Walk Fest 2016 Evaluation Report. Bristol City Council (2018). The Population of Bristol - June 2018. Accessed 20/7/18: https://www.bristol.gov.uk/documents/20182/33904/Population+of+Bristol+June+2018/53020277-05de-a153-2052-aa080338bb57. Bristol Walk Fest 2018 website: https://www.bristolwalkfest.com/ (including https://www.bristolwalkfest.com/news/ to see the range of blogs, case studies and features produced). Also see: Bristol Walk Fest Facebook, Twitter and all BWF evaluation reports. Crombie IK, Irvine L, Williams B, McGinnis AR, Slane PW, Alder EM, McMurdo MET (2004). Why older people do not participate in leisure time physical activity: a survey of activity levels, beliefs and deterrents. Age and Ageing, 33, 3, 287–292. Davis MG, Fox KR, Hillsdon D, Sharp DJ, Coulson JC, Thompson JL (2011). Objectively Measured Physical Activity in a Diverse Sample of Older Urban UK Adults. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 43, 4, 647–654. Department of Health (2011). Start Active, Stay Active: A report on physical activity for
health from the four home countries’ Chief Medical Officers. Accessed 10/7/18:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/216370/dh_
128210.pdf
Destination Bristol: https://visitbristol.co.uk/destinationbristol. Accessed 24/8/18.
Happy Shoesday, by Living Streets. Accessed 24/7/18:
https://www.livingstreets.org.uk/what-we-do/projects/happy-shoesday.
Lowman C, Nichols C, Hamilton D, Wallis B, Ball J (2017) Bristol Walk Fest: 2017 Evaluation Report. Moran M, Van Cauwenberg J, Hercky-Linnewiel R, Ester Cerin E, Deforche B, Plaut P (2014). Understanding the relationships between the physical environment and physical activity in older adults: a systematic review of qualitative studies. International Journal of Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity, 11, 79. Stathi A, Gilbert H, Fox KR, Coulson JC, Davis M, Thompson JL (2012). Determinants of Neighbourhood Activity, of Adults Age 70 and Over: a Mixed-Methods Study. Journal of Aging and Physical Activity, 2012, 20, 148-170.
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Appendix H - PR and media summary
Media coverage report for Bristol Walk Fest 2018
Two press releases went out about the event:
Put your best foot forward… Bristol Walk Fest is back – 2018 (issued by Bristol
Walk Fest)
https://www.bristolwalkfest.com/put-your-best-foot-forward/
This city’s made for walking: Walking cricket game to launch #BristolWalkFest –
2018 (issued by 42 Group)
https://www.bristolwalkfest.com/this-citys-made-for-walking-walking-cricket-game-to-
launch-bristolwalkfest/
The second was to publicise a media photocall opportunity which was designed to officially
launch BWF 2018, the UK’s largest urban celebration of walking and three new walking
sports in Bristol: cricket, tennis and women’s football. Mayor Marvin Rees was invited
along to help launch the event and took part in a walking cricket demonstration. The event
was held at St Paul’s Community Sports Academy on Friday, 20 April 2018 at 11.30am.
The media launch for the festival gained the attention from a number of press
representatives including reporters from the Bristol Post and The Breeze South West.
Overall the festival was covered widely by community newsletters around Bristol and other
more mainstream media outlets.
Media coverage and features (based on Google search):
02.02.18 - Bristol Sport: Put your best foot forward - Bristol Walk Fest is back
02.02.18 - LinkAge Network: Put your best foot forward… Bristol Walk Fest is back
05.02.18 - Bristol 24/7: Bristol Walk Fest back for 2018
08.02.18 - Visit Bristol: Put your best foot forward…. Bristol Walk Fest is back
23.02.18 - Bishopston Voice: Put your best foot forward for Walk Fest
March 2018 - SHIRE News: Put your best foot forward … Bristol Walk Fest is back
12.03.18 - The Bishopston Society: Bristol WalkFest event, May 2nd 2018
27.03.18 - Bristol Post: The ultimate guide to Bristol festivals in 2018
13.04.18 - 365Bristol: Bristol Walk Fest from Tuesday 1st to Thursday 31st May 2018
20.04.18 - LinkAge Network: This city’s made for walking: Walking cricket game to launch
#BristolWalkFest
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23.04.18 - Gloucestershire Cricket Board: Mayor Marvin launches GCB’s first walking
cricket programme
27.04.18 - Bristol Property Live: Bristol Walk Fest Returns!
01.05.18 - Brunel’s SS Great Britain: Brunel Walking Trails
02.05.18 - Bristol 24/7: Preview: Bristol Walk Fest 2018
24.05.18 - Gloucestershire Cricket Board: Walking cricket up and running
May 2018 - What’s on Bristol Magazine: Event listing
May 2018 - The Bristol Magazine: Great outdoors: Go Forth and Ramble!
May 2018 - The Bristol Magazine (featured article - see pages 102-103): Walk Bris Way
Bloggers
23.04.18 - Visit Bristol: Bristol Walk Fest: Top 10 highlights
23.04.18 - M Shed: M Shed walk: Exploring Bristol’s street art
27.04.18 - air360: Attention Walking Enthusiasts!
04.05.18 - The Interchange: Step outside for Bristol Walk Fest
Online event listings
Bristol Festivals: http://bristolfestivals.org/events/event/bristol-walk-fest-2018/
Bristol Health Partners:
http://www.bristolhealthpartners.org.uk/events/view/2018/05/01/bristol-walk-fest-2018/323
iVisit England: http://ivisitengland.org/south-west-events/2018/5/1/ivisit-bristol-walk-fest
LinkAge Network: https://www.linkagenetwork.org.uk/events/bristol-walk-fest-2018/
Live For The Outdoors (Country Walking): https://www.livefortheoutdoors.com/walking-
festivals
Ramblers: http://www.ramblers.org.uk/go-walking/events-index/2018/may/bristol-walking-
festival-2018.aspx
Visit Bristol: https://visitbristol.co.uk/whats-on/bristol-walk-fest-p2412853
Walks Around Britain: http://walksaroundbritain.co.uk/walkingfestivals
Radio coverage
16.04.18 - Ujima Radio (Babbers Show) - Nicola Ferris (Bristol City Council) interviewed
about BWF and walking.
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20.04.18 - The Breeze South West - Mayor Marvin Rees interviewed as part of BWF press
launch at St Paul’s Community Sports Academy.
27.04.18 - BBC Radio Bristol (John Darvall Show)
Karen Lloyd (Active Ageing Bristol Manager) and Margaret (walk leader) interviewed about
walking, BWF and more. Listen around 2 hrs and 10 mins:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p063cpnj#playt=02h10m38s
01.05.18 - BCfm Radio (Wellbeing Show)
Pre-recorded interview with Karen Lloyd (Active Ageing Bristol Manager) about BWF.
Listen around 19:06:http://www.bcfmradio.com/wellbeing
01.05.18 - BBC Radio Bristol
Jack Stanbury (Gloucestershire Football Association) interviewed about BWF, Women’s
Walking Football and Walking Football Tournament.
05.05.18 - BBC Radio Bristol (Dr Phil Hammond Show)
Karen Lloyd (Active Ageing Bristol Manager) and Margaret (walk leader) interviewed about
BWF and the many health benefits of walking. Listen from 09.31 mins in:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p064nl0m
06.05.18 - BBC Radio Bristol (Clueless with Richard Lewis)
Karen Lloyd (Active Ageing Bristol Manager), Dawn (walk leader) and Michael and Linda
(walk participants) featured as part of Clueless (the show which puts you firmly in the
driving seat. Helping two teams crack puzzles, as they travel across the West).
23.05.18 - BBC Radio Bristol (The Martin Evans Show)
Pre-recorded interview about BWF with Karen Lloyd (Active Ageing Bristol Manager).
Other publicity
• Carers Support Centre: https://www.carerssupportcentre.org.uk/bristol-walk-fest-2018/