Please note that this year's programme is full.
If you would like to be involved in putting on an event as part of the festival, you can find out more below.
We ask all contributors to subscribe to our values that can be found in the "About Us" section. We would like you to read them carefully before returning the event proposal form.
The Edinburgh World Justice Festival provides a high-profile platform for world justice events. We put together a high-quality programme of events and attract publicity, sponsorship and media coverage. We organise the venue, catering and provide volunteers on the day to help your event run smoothly.
In previous years, many contributors said that their event had attracted a wider audience as part of the festival than it would have done had it been organised in isolation. This was due to substantial media coverage in the Big Issue, the Evening News, the Scotsman, and many local papers, as well as mentions on Radio Scotland and Talk Radio, and listings in a variety of publications. In each year we also printed and distributed around the city 10,000 high-quality programme brochures with full details of all events.
We will do our best to make the programme as varied and inclusive as we can. If we are unable to incorporate your proposal into the EWJF programme we will discuss our reasons with you.
From our experience over the three years we have been running the festival, we have identified some things that worked well and have set them out below.
The most successful events in previous festivals had a clear focus and defined goals. The structure and delivery of the event was coherent and interesting, with a variety of media used to get the message across. We hope to achieve a lively, inclusive and appealing atmosphere, including music, film, talks and discussions throughout the festival. When planning your event be creative and think about your opportunities. Does your organisation have access to speakers, films, equipment or venues that will make your event stand out from the rest? Is there a certain catch or twist they may be able to get your event in the media? Remember, there will be many events: why will people come to yours?
Would it be useful to collaborate with other organisations to make your event more successful? In past festivals, organisations that collaborated to deliver a particular message had the greatest impact and produced the kinds of successful events described above. With several organisations already keen to take part, and an anticipated increase in the overall numbers of contributors, we may not be able to cater for separate events for all organisations. We would encourage collaborative approaches wherever possible. It may be that there are organisations you aren’t aware of who would add a different angle to your message. We would be happy to facilitate collaboration between potential contributors who appear to have similar aims and interests.
There is a range of venues in Edinburgh. Some have been provisionally booked for the festival. We have small spaces and large halls and will try to suggest one suitable for your event. A quiet discussion may be better in a small space than a large hall, some evening events may benefit from the venue having a bar. If you have a particular idea for a venue let us know.
The Edinburgh World Justice Festival planning group will do all we can to support the events. There will always be festival volunteers on hand to help set up and steward the events, but as we are all volunteers, many with full time jobs, it would be helpful to find out what support you would require and whether you or your organisation could provide any additional support staff on the day.
We will be arranging stall hire separately from event proposals this year. If you would like a stall at your own event, please let us know by emailing us at info@ewjf.org.uk and we will contact you once the programme has been finalised.
If you would like to invite other organisations to hold a stall at your event, please put them in touch with us at info@ewjf.org.uk, so that we can manage the stall allocation at each event.
We will make a small charge for stalls to help us cover our costs. The stall fees for organisations who are not already donating as contributors to the event are as follows:
Stall fee
Large national organisation £50
Small national organisation £25
Small local organisation £10