We're going digital for 2020!

The organisers of the Winchester Heritage Open Days festival are delighted to announce that this year's 2020 festival will be going ahead, with free events and local stories at its heart. 

Since 2016, Winchester’s Heritage Open Days festival has grown to become an important event in the local calendar, with thousands of visitors attending the programme of events.

This year, with the uncertainty surrounding when cultural events will be able to run once more following the Covid-19 Pandemic, it has become clear that the traditional format of the festival will not be possible in September. The focus this year will be digital.

Commenting on the decision to focus on digital events this year, Festival Director Nicky Gottlieb said, 

“We are enormously grateful to all our sponsors, supporters, volunteers and event organisers who have helped the Festival grow to become the success that it is. I am sure that there will be people who look forward to the events every year and will be disappointed by our decision not to hold events in the usual way this year. 

However, it is important the festival is safe, is inclusive and does not add further cost or burden to businesses and organisations who at this time are getting back on their feet.  Whilst we hope one or two organisations may be able to hold some in-person events (in line with government guidance at the time of the festival), our focus will be on encouraging digital events. We do this with the expectation that this year’s festival will be smaller. 

We are working hard to plan for a digital festival this September, and this will include our very own podcast channel. We very much hope to welcome all our events and visitors back in the usual way in September 2021.”

Further details on the programme for the 2020 Digital Heritage Open Days Festival and the launch of our podcast channel in August will be released in due course.

2019 Facts and Figures

Winchester Heritage Open Days is one of the biggest Heritage Open Days hubs in the country, accounting for over 2% of the national programme.

In 2019 there were 145 events over ten days in more than 70 venues in and around Winchester, with over 22,000 festival visits.

This year more than half of the bookable events were fully booked by the opening day of the festival which is extraordinary. Generally for FREE events 45% of tickets are not taken up until the day of the event.

Nearly 60,000 visits to our website between the box office opening in mid July and the last day of the festival, with more than 3,000 visitors to website on our first festival Saturday. A reach of 55,000 on social media during the festival and in the preceding 20days. There are now just under 1000 people on our mailing list with a pre-festival engagement rate of 75% and an average engagement rate of 54%.

62% of attendees specifically came into Winchester because of the festival and 60% came into Winchester on multiple days for multiple events. We had a few festival super fans this year; at least three attended twenty or more and a further twenty attended ten or more events over the ten days.

Nearly three quarters of our visitors live within 15 miles of Winchester, and around 17% travelled more than 25miles to attend for one or more of the days. An increase of 2% on the previous year

We are also seeing overseas visitors discovering Winchester Heritage Open Days on the internet, and specifically coming to Winchester because of it. One from Australia wrote to us afterwards saying

“totally worth travelling to the UK all the way from Australia (28hrs!), to find myself smack in the middle of Heritage Open Days. So much fantastic insight into history - and for a traveller on a tight budget it was wonderful to have access to much of this at no cost! Nicky and Becky were amazing at supporting my interest to attend as many events as possible and assisting me to get into tours, even though I was coming in at the 11th hour. Thanks so much for holding these incredible events - and for making an International traveller feel so welcome! An unforgettable experience!!’

Events this year included open buildings, guided tours and walks, lectures and seminars, live theatre and music, living history events, heritage craft workshop, tastings, linking up with other festivals, exhibitions and behind the scenes visits.

The tours at Winchester College are probably the most popular but there was also a huge interest in the talks, Open Greener Houses, Abbots Barton Farmhouse, events at Great Hall, behind the scenes tours across the city .

We know from previous years 89% of visitors learn something new thanks to their HODs experience. HODs also engages the local community with 88% feeling more proud of their local area and 85% feeling inspired to visit another heritage event or site in the near future.

Here are some of the comments we received in 2019 when we ask what they liked most about HODs;

• Having free access to Winchester's Historic Buildings, and seeing parts of Winchester not usually open to public

• The variety of events on offer - The casualness of attending, i.e. if there was space you we welcome to join - The quality of the people doing the tours

• Enthusiasm of the tour guides, learning about history & talks in places not usually open

• A chance to step back & appreciate the richness of local history

It is not just the visitors who gain, some businesses who hosted events have shared that they experienced a significant increase in sales as a direct result of HODs and many attractions reported their visitor numbers were up throughout the festival period and not just on the days they were running events. The 2019 festival was incredibly successful.

Looking ahead to 2020

“NEWSFLASH - Further to the December update set out below, we are delighted to share we are now able to produce a printed programme and run a box office this year. More information will be shared soon.”

— Becky & Nicky, 14th February 2020

As many of you know there is no central funding for the festival, and the coordinating team are all unpaid volunteers, consequently Winchester Heritage Open Days has been completely dependent upon the two lead volunteers time and availability, as well as the sponsorship and grants from local organisations. This set up has worked incredibly well for the past four years but, we are sure you will agree, it is not sustainable.

Nicky and Becky are not disappearing!

So for the past eighteen months Nicky and Becky have, alongside running the 2019 festival, also been exploring other options with our key partners. Unfortunately, they have not been able to find a robust solution in time for 2020 and so whilst there will still be events next year they will be fewer in number and they won't be centrally organised or promoted. 

Instead next year they will be turning their attention to fundraising for a much needed festival manager and will be seeking widespread support and help with sponsorship, venues, gala dinners and more. This change of direction is essential if we are to make sure we have a sustainable framework in place for 2021 and beyond.

We will still issue our regular newsletters, and so will continue to keep you posted on our progress as well as events. We will also be keeping our website and social media active although, as we are sure you will appreciate, for one year at least, these will be at a much reduced level. We hope to provide a holding page on our website showing which events will be taking place. In addition, the City Council has offered to list events on their pages in 2020. So still make a note of the dates in your diary!

11th to 20th September 2020

Heritage Open Days 25th Anniversary Party

We had such a wonderful time celebrating Heritage Open Days Silver Anniversary.

Last week’s party took place in the beautiful setting of City Mill, and we were joined by Mayor of Winchester and Heritage Open Days as well as many of our festival event organisers and sponsors including Winchester College, Winchester BID, Shentons Solicitors, Hampshire County Council, Winchester City Council and Hampshire Cultural Trust.

To read the full press release click here.

Extraordinary Women of Hampshire

Nearly 400 people voted in the Winchester Heritage Open Days special election, and this morning the City of Winchester Electoral Services duly declared that Josephine Butler, Social Reformer is Hampshire's most Extraordinary Woman.

Portrait of Josephine Butler by George Richmond, 1851 (NPG/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain)

Not only was Josephine Butler a social reformer, she was also a pioneering feminist, daring to speak out publicly, and achieved huge social and legal reforms at a time when women did not even have the right to vote. She fought hard to eradicate child prostitution and sex trafficking across the world and successfully campaigned to repeal the Contagious Diseases Act which discriminated against prostitutes.

Many Victorians were shocked that a woman would speak in public about sexual matters and, as a result, Josephine was shunned by many of her liberal friends.

Millicent Fawcett however described her as ‘the most distinguished Englishwoman of the nineteenth century’, so perhaps it is not surprising that she was voted as the most extraordinary woman in our ballot.

The other women in the ballot were Elizabeth Bather, Juliana de la Floude, Mary Ellis, Queen Emma of Normandy, Louisa Perks and Tilly Shilling. The full election results can be found here.

Our special election and supporting pop-up exhibition was just one of hundreds of events taking place across the country which celebrated the stories of remarkable women who have brought about change, made a difference or left a legacy that should be cherished. Hampshire is blessed to have so many remarkable women, past and present, who have enriched our lives in some way or who have made a major contribution to society, either locally or at a national level. Many of the names in our exhibition would have been familiar to visitors such as Jane Austen, others such as Beatrice Shilling, maybe less so.

Our aim with both the ballot and exhibition was to enlighten and entertain all ages by providing a glimpse into the lives of the women we chose. It was not a conclusive list and we encouraged visitors to tell us of any other extraordinary women of Hampshire who we may have overlooked and who should be acknowledged.

Volunteer Pauline casts her vote in our Extraordinary Women of Hampshire election. I wonder if Pauline voted for Josephine?!

We would still be delighted to hear via our website from visitors, as we are currently exploring options to make this a permanent exhibition and are also looking for support to produce a book to accompany this very successful and popular exhibition.

We would also like to take this opportunity to thank again Winchester Electoral Services for loaning us the voting equipment, to Smith & Ouzman for kindly printing the ballot papers and to Winchester City Council for funding the exhibition.