The Leytonstone Arts Trail is an annual festival of visual arts that happens all over Leytonstone - a town near London, England -  in diverse and unexpected venues. It showcases the creative talent in Leytonstone and its surrounding areas, builds connections between artists and local businesses, and invites the community to a week long festival of high quality art.

But like many artistic organizations across the world, funding cuts have forced innovative new approaches - such a crowdfunding. I had the pleasure to speak with Carne Griffiths, the leader of the crowdfunding campaign, about this journey and about how to be successful at raising funds for an arts festival.

What was the inspiration behind the visual arts project you are currently running on RocketHub?  Why is it important to you? 

My view of the inspiration behind the art trail is that it is an opportunity for artists and people living and working in the area to share their enjoyment of creativitiy. Many talented artists live in the area but ironically there are few places to show. Through most of the year, viewers have to travel outside the area. For two glorious weeks Leytonstone has delightful, intruiging, astonishing sights accessible in shops, cafes, streets, parks, the libraries and pubs where they normally go and additionally in windows, pop-up galleries and unexpected new venues. 

Sounds like quite a creative blast. How has your experience been as a crowdfunding pioneer in the world of arts in London - how are your supporters responding?

We were pleasantly surprised with how easy it was to set up a crowdfunding project and are all excited about the impact it will have on this years trail. We have decided to try and raise a small portion of the money needed to successfully fund the Leytonstone Arts Trail through RocketHub as it is our first experience of crowdfunding but we are hoping that in future we will be able to provide a solid platform for this community project. Supporters are responding brilliantly, we have been sharing links on Facebook and have reached 10% of our target in just a few days. We need to step up promotion now as the Trail begins on the 1st of July!

I really like your gradual approach. Any advice for Creatives looking to crowdfund a similar project?

Go with a small amount of your project first. We decided not to be overambitious and offered incentives for those giving small amounts to our project. As we are creatives we can utilise things that we can make to help attract funders for our project rather than just trying to sell items. I think if people know the money from the sale is going back into a creative project it makes them that more enthusiastic.

Thank you Carne for chatting with me from across the pond. Good luck - support the Trail here.

-Vlad