Five Bristol cultural organisations are celebrating after seeing off stiff competition to win three coveted national awards between them from organisers of the Get Creative Family Arts Festival 2016.
Music venue St George’s scooped two awards – for Best Family Welcome and Best Age-Friendly Event – while the Architecture Centre in collaboration with Arnolfini, Watershed and Children’s Scrapstore landed the title of Best Family Event. 
The annual Get Creative Family Arts Festival is a national festival offering families an extraordinary range of arts activities to enjoy right across the UK.
Voted for by a panel of expert judges from the arts sector, the awards recognise the outstanding events that took place within last October’s festival and the exemplary family-friendly organisations and venues that participated.
The Bristol organisations joined 736 others to stage 4,000 events across the UK as part of the festival, attracting around 500,000 family members.
It is the second time St George’s has received recognition for its work with families, which include concerts, MiniBeats and Wild Word music and storytelling. St George’s also runs fun ‘relaxed performances’ for children with special needs and their families.
Its Best Age-Friendly Event Award recognised a free lunchtime concert with Cardiff County and Vale of Glamorgan Symphonic Brass.
The Get Creative Family Arts Festival was celebrated at the awards ceremony earlier this month staged at Bristol’s Circomedia circus school, recognising the festival’s most engaging family events as well as highlighting the outstanding organisers among the huge variety of participating organisations.
St George’s also hosted the Get Creative Family Arts Conference the following day.
St George’s education manager Laura Tanner represented the venue at the awards ceremony, accompanied by head of education Catherine Freda and head of marketing Dagmar Smeed.
Laura said: “At the root of all of St George’s programming for children and families is our belief in the power and the value of live music for everyone. 
“Music is an inclusive language that speaks to all of us, with the ability to engage, inspire and unite diverse people, as they share in unique and magical experiences.”
The Architecture Centre, Arnolfini, Watershed and Children’s Scrapstore hosted an ‘inventors laboratory’ as the finale event to the city-wide Bristol Family Arts Festival last October.
Celebrating the festival theme of innovation, the event transformed Arnolfini’s auditorium into a multi-sensory creative testing ground with hundreds of young inventors involved. The finale embodied the spirit of the national Family Arts Festival, encouraging families to get creative and participate in art activities.
Inclusion and accessibility are key priorities for the Bristol Family Arts Festival, and over the past three years, the Architecture Centre has taken the lead on a series of outreach events across the city with community partners such as Junction 3 Library, Lawrence Weston Community Farm and Room 13 Hareclive.
These events targeted families from Hartcliffe, Lawrence Weston, Easton and Lawrence Hill – communities outside of the city centre with less access to cultural activity. The festival aims to address city challenges of postcode, ethnicity and disability inequality through a longer-term ambition that ‘all Bristol families have the opportunity to access a good quality cultural offer’.
Architecture Centre head of learning and participation, Amy Harrison, said: “Much of the arts and cultural provision of Bristol only directly benefits certain communities and those located close to the city centre. Through Family Art Festival outreach events partnerships we are able to creatively engage with a more diverse family audience across the city, helping to make the city’s cultural offer more accessible.”
Mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees added: “I’m proud we have a festival dedicated entirely to families and I welcome the commitment by Bristol Family Arts Festival’s organisers to make diversity and inclusion a strong focus of the 2017 event.
“Bristol is renowned for its thriving and innovative cultural life. While we undoubtedly have a great story to tell, the city’s success is shared by too few people. We want Bristol to flourish as a prosperous and inclusive city in which no-one is left behind. Improving access to, and participation in, the arts, festivals, sport and other events is an important part of this jigsaw.”
