FAQs

View our frequently asked questions

Mailing list

We send out a regular newsletter to all festival contributors. If you would like to receive this then sign up for the newsletter mailing list

Submitting an event for the Festival

All coordinators must submit their events into our Event Management System (EMS).

We have created a full user guide to EMS to help with your submission - Please read the user guide before submitting your event.

Submissions for the 2025 Festival will open on 16 July 2024. The deadline for submitting events is 15 November 2024.

External organisations should contact the Festival Managers as soon as possible to discuss their involvement in the Festival.

Please adhere to the University of Cambridge editorial house style when entering content to the EMS.

Images for events

It is vital we have good images for all events to attached the public and make them want to attend. The size required for EMS is 590x290 pixels. 

If you are struggling for an image, there are a number of royalty-free image websites available to use:

You need to include an alt text description for accessibility reasons and ensure credit if appropriate and required.

If you do not have image resizing software, there a number of free sites that can do this for you: Wix, Adobe Express, PicResize, Simple Image Resizer

Room booking

You are in charge of finding a suitable venue for your event this can be either online, internal to the University via the booker system below or an external venue.

Booker is a room booking system that has been designed for the University. Many departments are already using the system to manage their own rooms, and administrators have been very positive about its user-friendly interface and features. It is available for any University department to adopt, free of charge, and with full training and support from the service team based at UIS (University Information Services).

https://www.em.admin.cam.ac.uk/what-we-do/estate-operations/facilities-services/room-bookings

All University staff are entitled to sign up for a Booker account, which enables them to search and discover a growing number of rooms. To request an account, please contact roombookingsystem@uis.cam.ac.uk.

You can use Accessable to check the accessibility of your venue.

Key dates

Deadlines

Dates

EMS open for event submissions

 16 July 2024

Contributors first meeting (online and recorded)

 16 July 2024

Second contributors meeting (online and recorded)

 10 October 2024
Festival submission deadline

15 November 2024

Press and PR launch

 w/c 20 January 2025

Programme and bookings open

17 February 2025
Deadline to submit Risk Assessments

24 February 2025

Cambridge Festival 2022

 19 March-4 April 2025

Evaluation

We hope you will plan to collect feedback on your activity. You can use the example message below if you are sending emails. We will be creating a survey in Qualtrics which we can share with you in due course. 

Thank you for attending this event as part of the Cambridge Festival.

We are keen to learn about your experience of the Festival to help us develop plans for the future and bring you the best possible events and activities. To help us do this, could you please complete a very short survey?

This survey is completely optional and should take no more than 5 minutes of your time. Thank you for your help!

Contributor agreement form

You can download our DOUBLE SIDED - Adult and Child Consent Release Form that we are planning to use for anyone appearing in our core programmed events or for any direct event photography. Please feel free to use this for your events too. You can also use this perimeter signage if you plan to film/photograph our event/s.

Download the event preparation checklist. You are welcome to use this to help contributors prepare for a live online event (although many of the tips will also apply to pre-recorded videos too).

Branding and copyright compliance

Please adhere to our branding guidelines. Contact us for a copy of the Cambridge Festival logo.

Please adhere to guidelines on copyright compliance in any materials related to your event. If you are internal to the University of Cambridge, information can be found on the Copyright Compliance page in the Guidance Section of the Legal Services website.

Risk assessments and Public Liability Insurance

Please submit your documents via the link we provided in our contributors mailing, if you have not received this, please get in touch. These must be with us by 24 February 2025.

The following risk assessment templates have been developed by the Festival team for you to use for online events, in person talks and in person exhibition/demo. You can also use the general university template.

You are strongly encouraged to update it so it is relevant to your own event(s). Please ensure your organisational/department safety officer approves your risk assessment(s) before submitting to the Festival team. We cannot accept any risk assessments that have not been approved by your department’s or organisation’s safety officer.

If you are based in a college or if your organisation is external to the University, you will also need to supply a copy of your Public Liability Insurance (PLI) when submitting your risk assessment.

The Festival team has also created a Code of Conduct which will apply to all Festival events and which is referenced in the risk assessment template provided above.

You can also use our filming preparation document if you wish, to help with live and/or pre-recorded events.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Statement

The Cambridge Festival aims to be an inclusive and safe space for people of all backgrounds, races and ethnicities, ages, genders, and abilities to engage with our research. 

We know there are persistent structural barriers to equality in many areas of society and there is a lot of work to be done in breaking those down. We hope to help make a step in the right direction by striving for diversity in our speakers, the topics explored, the event and activity formats used and by encouraging and enabling discussion about systemic inequalities such as racism, sexism, and ableism from multiple perspectives. 

We are committed to making the Cambridge Festival productive, supportive and inclusive and have prepared a Code of Conduct. This is to ensure that the Festival is a positive experience for everyone of all gender identities and expressions, sexual orientations, with any disability and of all races, ethnicities, nationalities, religions/beliefs and other protected identities based on the UK’s 2010 Equality Act. By attending Festival events, you are confirming that you will abide by this Code of Conduct in all interactions throughout the Festival.

Accessibility

Everyone is welcome at the Cambridge Festival and we are committed to making our online content as accessible as possible.Guidance for creating accessible online content for the Festival.

The University uses its best efforts to ensure that all its Cambridge Festival web content is accessible and can be used by as many people as possible.  If a member of the public is unable to access your Festival content, please review and, please be prepared to provide it in alternative formats where possible. You also should be aware that the University has under the Equality Act 2010 a legal duty to provide reasonable adjustments for disabled people, which includes making web-based content accessible for them.

Top filming tips from Cambridge Filmworks

Our filming partners Cambridge Filmworks have put together a document with some handy hints when undertaking remote filming. View the filming tips.