Wednesday, January 10, 2018
We're very happy to announce that following the fantastic feedback we received from you about the introduction of the lower festival volunteer deposit last year, plus the ongoing exceptional reliability and performance of our volunteers at last summer's festivals; we'll be making further reductions and changes to the deposit payment and returns process for 2018!
The security deposit system was originally introduced in 2003 to reduce the problem of staff and volunteers applying, then either not turning up at the festival, or turning up, taking their crew pass, and then disappearing into the festival without working any shifts. The festival's staff and volunteers are a key component of the event's licence, therefore any staff and volunteers who don't turn up or decide to not work their shifts must be replaced. We weren't keen to bring in the deposit system, but it has cut the problem from around 40% to 3%.
Over the years, the volunteer deposit level naturally increased with the festival ticket prices from £125 in 2003 to £230 in 2016. We were naturally receiving a lot of feedback that the deposit price had become too high for some of you to join us, so we took this to the festival organisers who set the deposit price, recommending that it was lowered. Due to the fantastic performance and reliability of our staff and volunteers, they agreed last year that we could lower the deposit to £145 on a trial basis.
Following a hugely successful 2017 we've agreed an additional reduction for 2018; to drop the volunteer deposit from £145 to £95 for returning volunteers. Meaning if you're joining us for the first time the volunteer deposit will be £145, although once you've successfully volunteered at a festival with us the deposit will only be £95!
As always, a single deposit covers you for as many festivals as you'd like to volunteer at e.g. you only need to pay 1 deposit each year to volunteer with us at as many festivals as you'd like to!
We've also listened to your feedback about the volunteer deposit returns process; that it takes too long. We've always been restricted by the terms of our merchant provider; that deposits are not transferred to us until the end of the festival season. We've spoken with our merchant provider and they've agreed to a staggered returns process; meaning deposits for each festival will be transferred to us no later than 30 days after the last day of the event.
This means that deposit returns for eligible volunteers with no future events applied to can now be processed following each event!
The final change to deposits for 2018 is the removal of the merchant provider's card fee! This means no matter how you pay your volunteer deposit (bank transfer, cheque, or card); there will be no payment fees applied to your deposit!
You can find further details about the deposit related changes in our updated FAQs and T&Cs.
We hope the deposit reduction for returning volunteers, the faster returns process, and the removal of card payment fees, comes as welcome news for everyone planning on joining us volunteering at festivals in 2018!
If you have any questions about the festival volunteering deposit system, please head over to our FAQs where many of the questions we're regularly asked are answered.
If there is anything you can't find the answer to, please don't hesitate to get in touch!
We'll be letting you know soon when we'll be opening volunteer applications for 2018's festivals so please keep an eye on our news and social channels for updates!
