How to get involved
Why get involved?
- Raise awareness through a popular national platform - 4.8 million website users every year
- Reach a new audience - 32% visitors come from a C2DE background
- Access a wide range of support materials and guidance including bunting and risk assessment templates
- Connect with people across the country - each year we encourage our 2,000+ organisers to meet and share ideas
- All for FREE!
Read more about the festival's impact in our 2023 Festival Review
Entry criteria
We’d love you to join us! Heritage Open Days is an inclusive event, encouraging different interpretations of heritage and culture around the country. Your event doesn’t need to be big or fancy or boast of famous connections (although we like those things too!), it just needs to meet these conditions:
1. FREE from entrance to exit
It is possible to raise money over the festival BUT admission to the main attraction of your event has to be free of charge. Running a free tour if visitors have to pay a site entrance fee doesn't count!
2. Offer something special
- Open a site / part of a site that isn’t usually open to the public
- Launch a new online activity/event
- Offer free entry to a usually charging site/activity
- If your site is open free of charge all year round - then something out of the ordinary! Such as: have volunteer stewards on site to greet visitors and answer questions / put on some activities or a competition / invite other groups to showcase their work – eg artists, choirs, local history societies
3. Take place within the festival dates
The festival covers ten days in early September and your event must take place at some point during this time. However, it doesn’t have to be open on all days or even for a full day.
Our support
All our support is FREE including:
- Promotional materials such as bunting and stickers
- Downloadable resources including: logos, templates, event ideas, media guidance; evaluation materials
- Inclusion on the popular national event directory
- Potential to be highlighted in the national media campaign
- Secondary insurance cover (public liability)
- Guidance on the phone or via email
- Networking events to meet the team and swap ideas and experiences with other organisers
Registration step by step...
2 - Submit your details (by 8 August)
Submit your event details using our online registration form in your Organiser area.
Event registration is open: 4 March - 8 August.
3 - Check your listings
Most events need to be reviewed by the team before being fully registered, if there's a query we'll be in touch, otherwise you will get an email to notify you that it has been approved for publication. This might take a few weeks as we're a small team, please bear with us!
Listings go live on the website from June - check your entry is correct and present.
4 - Promote your event
5 - Keep us posted
Key dates
| 4 March | Event registration opens |
| April / May | Long lead press release |
| 3 June | Event directory launches |
| 8 August | Event registration closes |
| 6-15 September | The festival! |
| Early October | Evaluation deadline |