The National Festival of Youth Theatre has always aimed to be an inclusive event, bringing together a wide range of youth theatre groups, participants and leaders to celebrate their shared passion.
In recent years, we’ve received growing interest from youth groups who support young people that may experience barriers to attending the festival. We have been on hand to help these groups as they plan and fundraise to attend NFYT. We have also been able to make adaptations to the festival to meet different access requirements, including BSL interpreters (ensuring that all our workshops and performances are D/deaf accessible) and accessible facilities at our campsite, and in 2022 were able to introduce an Access Bursary for the first time.
This year we want to continue to put access and inclusion at the heart of our festival. Thanks to support from our funders, we will enable more disabled and disadvantaged youth theatre participants to experience the benefits of attending #NFYT2024.
What is an Access Bursary?
Groups can apply for an NFYT Access Bursary to request support for access costs unique to their group.
There are two types of bursaries available:
Financial Access Needs: we are keen to support groups which might face additional financial barriers to attend the festival. Groups can apply for an NFYT Access Bursary to reduce participant fees by up to one third, pay for camping equipment or help to subsidise travel costs for their groups.
Disability Access and Additional Support Needs: we will work with groups to ensure any access needs can be met during the festival and they can apply for support towards costs such as: additional access support workers, sensory equipment or additional transport costs incurred.
Who can apply?
Bursaries are available to groups attending on all ticket types – including full weekend (available from December 2023) and one-day tickets (available from March 2024). Please read the Event Information for Group Leaders document on our NFYT 2024 page for more details on eligibility and criteria.
If you are interested in bringing a group to NFYT and would like to discuss your access requirements further, please email catherine@ytas.org.uk.
How to apply
Please complete and submit the form linked below.
Please also ensure you have also completed either…
- NFYT Full Weekend Booking Form: linked here.
- Or the One-Day Ticket Booking Form: linked here.
Please note the bursary has limited funds and will remain available until requests exceed the available budget. We encourage all bursary applicants to get in touch as soon as possible, prior to submission, to discuss your needs.
What happens next?
A member of the Youth Theatre Arts Scotland team will contact you to discuss the details of your application and/or obtain any further information required.
We expect to be able to let you know the outcome of your application within two weeks of submission.
