Citywide Festivals

The York BID works closely with Make It York, the city’s destination management organisation, to develop and promote York. As part of our commitment to support events, the BID’s sponsorship makes significant contribution to festivals that raise the city’s profile and attract footfall.

The BID’s support and involvement in citywide festivals has positively impacted businesses in a number of ways. Whether it has been enabling the ‘scaling up’ of plans to increase the visibility of York’s streets and their offerings or extending the promotion of businesses and attractions beyond the holiday season, the York BID has supported projects that boost our local economy and drive residents and visitors to local businesses.

York Ice Trail

York’s Ice Trail is now the largest outdoor trail of its kind in the UK. The York BID are the main event sponsor, and supply a number of ice sculptures on city centre streets which would not traditionally have been included in the event. This ensures that as many levy payers as possible benefit from the boost in footfall and are able to showcase their street. The full trail, consisting of 40+ sculptures leads people to explore all areas of the city, encouraging them to investigate away from the centre.

Due to the success of previous years, in 2020 the events was extended to run across the course of two days.

 

Little Vikings Easter festival

York BID in partnership with Make It York and Little Vikings rolled out a fantastic Easter Festival in York’s Parliament Street. Little Vikings is a print and online magazine which highlights activities for children in York. They organised ‘The Hunt for the Magical Chocolatey Chick’ – a free admission children’s play which encouraged families to visit the city. It ran for five days with five performances per day, the majority of which were close to capacity, despite the bank holiday weather! The reach of the festival’s social media posts was 22,000 across the four days, with 1,667 video likes.

York Residents Festival

York Residents Festival is an annual event focused on welcoming York residents into the city centre, and to thank them for being so welcoming to York’s 8 million visitors every year. Residents are able to visit many of the city’s attractions for free.

During 2020, the festival enjoyed it’s 25th anniversary, with over 100 attractions, events and offers available to York residents, and the York BID gave away 400 York Gift Cards to residents. Organisers Make It York encourage local shops, cafes, restaurants and attractions to provide offers and deals as a means of giving something back and celebrating the local community.

For more information go to www.visityork.org/whats-on/residents-festival