Here’s what we’re hearing

Here’s what we’re hearing

After the festival, nearly 2,000 of you completed our survey. That’s an amazing response rate. Thank you all!

The winner of the survey draw was Michael Hayes – a pair of weekend tickets for Greenbelt 2017 are his. Congratulations Michael.

Here’s just a tiny slice of what we’re hearing from you … just some of the headlines.


96% of you were very satisfied or satisfied with your Greenbelt experience this year. That’s fantastic, but we’re not complacent. We want to maintain these levels of satisfaction and to improve on them if possible.

You reminded us that for most of you it’s not primarily the bill we book that draws you to the festival. Lots of you book for Greenbelt every year because that’s what you do. It’s in your diary. Like Christmas and Easter. Many more of you come with friends and families and as part of groups. Greenbelt is a communal pilgrimage for you. We like that too.

That said, the programming you engaged with scored better this year than last – especially our family content and the comedy on offer (James Acaster and Josie Long on a bumper bill on Monday helped with that). Lots of you noticed the increased focus on workshopping and active participation too. And the big participative moments like children leading the communion service and a hundred of you joining Hope & Social’s A Band Anyone Can Join to headline on Monday were well received. Overwhelmingly, you felt that the range and amount of programming was “about right”.

Experientially, 96% of you fed back that your Greenbelt included laughter. And, as one of our priorities is to create a space in which people can have fun, we’ll take that! Lots of you also noted that you’d had the opportunity to be part of intergenerational activities and that you’d felt part of a community – both of which are incredibly important to us, too.

In terms of practicalities, you think that we’ve got the get-on and get-off at Boughton right now and while there are still a bunch of things we need to fine-tune, we’re pleased that both you and we are learning how to be and do Greenbelt at Boughton at a practical level.

In terms of what you told us about yourselves and what you value … we’re hearing that you’re theologically liberal and interested in spirituality and activism; you’re open minded; you like the fact that Greenbelt is a space that welcomes all faiths and none and is increasingly programming artists and thinkers from faith traditions other than Christianity; and, in terms of campaigning concerns, it seems like climate change is top of your agenda.

You’ve given us so much good food for thought. We feel like we know you pretty well now. This is just a snapshot of a wealth of feedback and data that we’ll work with over the coming months as we begin to put the flesh on the bones of the 2017 festival – The Common Good. 

Thank you to all those who took the time to complete the survey.