News / Bristol
Use Your Power – Vote!
A collective of festival organisers have joined the bid to encourage young people to vote and make their voices heard.
Harnessing their power of engagement, the likes of Boomtown Fair, Shambala and Bristol-based Love Saves the Day, have signed up to a campaign to try and inspire engagement among the under-25s ahead of the General Election on June 8.
is needed now More than ever
Students have already been offered an incentive to head into the polling booth through an initiative that promises a free pint for all those who register to vote, but the group hope to extend this further.
Joby Andrews talks to a young voter during the launch of the Vote This Year Get Free Beer campaign launch. Photo: Simon Galloway.
Recognising that this could be “quite possibly be the most important for a generation,” a collective of festival organisers, artists, pub landlords and young voters have launched a series of initiatives to engage young people through the through the overarching campaign of Use your Power: Vote!
Their work in trying to engage a group that is almost half as likely to vote as those aged 65 plus, includes the launch of the Mayday Mayday website which counts down to the deadline day of May 22, to register and calls on people to own their future.
The festival collective, made up of 16 of some of the UK’s most popular independent festivals, are aiming to do a large scale public awareness campaign via all their channels at midday on Thursday, informing people on how to register to vote.
The idea is to open up conversations around issues that matter to their audiences.
A statement from the group says: “Collectively we saw that we were in a pretty unique position with the amount of engagement we have with the younger demographic and it was our responsibility to do something to help engage people in their own futures.
“This feels like an election where each and every vote really will count; an election that should be all about them, and how they want their futures to be. We just want to remind people that they really do have a say, and what they have to say really does matter.”
Every individual voice can make a difference so get involved and spread the word using the campaign hashtags: #maydaymayday2017 and #voteuseyourpower.
Register to vote online by Monday, May 22.
Full rundown of festivals involved:
Boomtown, Love Saves the Day, Shambala, Bestival, Camp Bestival, Common People (Oxford & Southampton), Liverpool Sound City, Beatherder, Green Man, Tokyo World, Tramlines, Blissfields, Green Gathering, Always The Sun, SWN festival.
Read more: Free beer for student voters in Bristol
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