Cambridge Festival’s Family Weekend is a large arts and sciences event aimed at inspiring, educating and entertaining children, young people and their families. Many activities are planned and delivered by the departments and institutions of the University of Cambridge, however, we enthusiastically welcome the participation of the local community.
In 2025, 10,000 visitors attended the Family Weekend across a variety of central Cambridge sites. Individual activities reported talking to at least 1,000 people at their stands. Our visitors are mostly from the local Cambridge and Cambridgeshire area, however, we do get visitors from London, the East of England and Europe.
Next year’s Family Weekend will take place 28th and 29th of March 2026. Activities should be accessible for the whole weekend.
Are you eligible?
We are looking for activities that are not only aimed at children or young people but are designed and/or delivered by them too.
You could be a local primary or secondary school looking for a platform for your extracurricular group to share their ideas.
Or you could be a local community group needing a specific project to focus your activities with families and children and grow your membership.
Or you could be a charity hoping to involve young people in a current campaign and increase your reach.
Our main criteria is that your activity is engaging and educational. The Cambridge Festival has four themes: Society, Environment, Health and Discovery, which we think covers most topics you might like to structure an activity around!
Previous activities at the Family Weekend have explored climate change, the Arabic language, archaeological stratigraphy, the periodic table (through embroidery!) young people’s mental health, water-themed poetry, bee keeping....
For us to provide you with funding, your organisation needs to be constituted or be led by someone who is self-employed and registered with HMRC (Revenue and Customs).
What we can offer
Funding of up to £3000.
Support entering your activity into the Cambridge Festival programme and event management system.
A space at the 2026 Family Weekend, if desired, or assistance finding a suitable University or community venue.
Marketing and PR support (as part of the Family Weekend or Cambridge Festival as a whole).
What we need from you
A short description (no more than one page of A4) of who you are and what you want to do at the Cambridge Festival. You should include details of the kinds of children or young people you aim to involve in the project (eg ‘our Eco-Schools group’, ‘the young people of Abbey’, ‘children aged 6 – 12 from our regular music classes’), how you intend to involve them and how you will address safeguarding (eg the group leaders are DBS checked, parents will attend activities with children etc).
A rough timeline of your development activities leading up to Cambridge Festival/the Family Weekend.
A breakdown of how you expect to spend your grant.
If you are funded successfully, we will expect you to support our reporting by completing a collaborator survey; collecting feedback, numbers and demographics of people engaging with your activity over the Family Weekend; and providing some quotes from the young people involved in the activity about what the experience meant to them.
Please attach all documents to one email and send to the Families Coordinator, Jenny Williams, at jennifer.williams@admin.cam.ac.uk with subject, ‘Open Call: Family Weekend 2026’
If it would be easier to submit your proposal in an alternative format (eg a voice note or video), please contact the Families Coordinator to discuss options.
Judging Criteria
In the event we receive more applications than we can support, we will prioritise projects that create opportunities for children and young people in areas of multiple deprivation. We will use these maps to help make decisions: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/english-indices-of-deprivation-2019-mapping-resources
Timeline
Open Call submissions from 25th of August
Cambridge Festival open for submissions 1st of September
Open Call submissions close midday, 2nd of October
Open Call decisions made and organisations informed 16th of October
Cambridge Festival submissions close 14th of November
If you have questions or concerns about the Open Call, or if you would like to discuss your idea with someone ahead of submitting your proposal, please email the Families Coordinator, Jenny Williams, on jennifer.williams@admin.cam.ac.uk
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