March 2025 | BIPS Outreach Grant
Nowruz Cultural Festival
Summary of topic:
Lauderdale House is a registered arts and education charity operating from a historic house in Waterlow Park, North London. By producing the Nowruz Cultural Festival we offer Persians a regular home to celebrate their culture and traditions at Nowruz, and an opportunity to share their richness with as many other communities as possible. The Festival seeks to enrich the lives of all, break down barriers, increase understanding and bring people together through cultural celebration. It offers a wide range of free and affordable activities to encourage as many people as possible to be involved. It also provides showcases for artists and community organisations from Persia and helps them reach new audiences and raise awareness of their arts and culture.
Report:
This was our second Nowruz Festival and we were delighted by the increased level of interest and attendance by both people of Persian cultural backgrounds and non-Persians who comprised ‘curious’ locals plus persophiles across London. We really did feel we’d been able to share and educate people about this rich culture beyond those of Persian heritage and, at the same time, provide a ‘home’ and place to celebrate for Persians.
The increased profile of the festival and marketing for the bazaar attracted the last minute attention of the Tilda Rice PR team who then paid a corporate rate to have a gazebo offering ‘giveaways’ at the entrance to the bazaar. This was valuable additional funding which also enabled us to enhance the programme.
The local paper, the Ham&High, featured the Paradise Bench online, and also on the front page of the printed paper. The bench was a commissioned artwork in the public park which encouraged people to take photos and share them, combined with a QR code leading to a podcast telling people about the inspiration behind the bench and Nowruz. Anyone approaching Lauderdale House from the main park would have noticed it.
They would also have noticed the elements of the trail displayed in trees across Waterlow Park leading to a large explanatory board on the tea lawn behind Lauderdale House. This is a very good way of piquing people’s interest and making it easy for them to find out more.
The BIPS grant allowed us to recognise the huge amount of time spent by our curator, and to feel confident enough to add 2 new performance events – Myths Of Shahmaneh storytelling and An Evening with Rumi, celebrating the teachings of Rumi through poetry, stories and song. Both events almost sold out. These were largely attended by Persians, and it was noticeable that some people brought children as they were keen to introduce them to this part of their heritage.
Throughout the festival several people mentioned that they very much welcomed the opportunity to introduce their families who are growing up in England, to Persian culture. This was noticeable at the family workshop when most of the participants also did the Haftsin Trail, and the visit by Rustam school.
Others attending the talks and bazaar said to our stewards how much they appreciated having a place to celebrate Nowruz that ‘felt like home’ including one young man who went out of his way to chat. He had only recently settled in the UK as a refugee.
Other events attracted a much broader demographic such as the bazaar, talks, private view launch, jazz and exhibitions themselves with many local people attending, who wished to learn more. Sizdeh bedar is celebrated by many people in Waterlow Park and non Persians are curious about what is happening.
Highlights were an increase from 750 people seeing the exhibition last year to 2,480 this year; a total attendance of 1,300 people attending the bazaar over 2 days compared to 350 over one day last year.
Based on the success of this year we are already planning our third festival for 2026
Katherine Ives is a Director at Lauderdale House.