What is Festival Campaigning?

Over the years we've painted people blue, asked festival-goers to write to their MP about the refugee crisis and spoke about the effects that fast fashion has on the environment.

As an Oxfam Campaigner, you will act as an ambassador, sharing our message and encouraging action such as a petition sign.

At some festivals, we also have campaign spaces where festivalgoers can come and take part in a creative activity - like sewing their climate wishes onto a second-hand dress.

As a campaigner, you will work 4 x 6-hour daytime shifts, ending at 5 and leaving the evenings free to explore.

Oxfam has had some massive campaign wins over the years and our work at festivals has been a large contributing factor.

In 2022, we encouraged festivalgoers to sign a letter calling for world leaders to agree to a Loss and Damage fund at COP27. We took 141,509 signatures to COP and Governments took notice! They agreed to set up the fund to support and compensate people feeling the effects of the climate crisis most who live in countries that have done the least to cause it.

But, the question remains, who should bear the responsibility of funding this initiative? We believe it should be the largest contributor to fossil fuel pollution. In 2023 we took another petition to festivals calling on governments to commit funding and saw 46,000 people sign, the most we have ever had!

We are looking for excellent communicators with plenty of energy who will be confident approaching and conversing with members of the public and acting as an ambassador for Oxfam. If this sounds like you, we'd love to hear from you!

If you're new to campaigning, read on to find out what's involved in the application process.

The first step in applying for a campaigning place is to log in to your account, choose your festival(s) from the drop-down menu and pay your deposit. This will reserve your place until we have reviewed your application.

As campaigning places are limited we ask that you demonstrate how you meet the skills we need and why you would make an excellent campaigner.

• In no more than 300 words tell us about one of Oxfam’s past or present campaigns and why you like it. At festivals this year our campaign will focus on climate justice – why do you think this is important?
• Record a 3-minute video of yourself: tell us a bit about yourself, including why you think you’d make a good campaigner, and tell us about something (anything!) that you’re passionate about – try and make us love it as much as you do!

Next, upload your video as an unlisted file to YouTube and paste the URL into the box provided in your profile. If you have any problems with this, please email us.

We will review every application and accept those we think would make a great fit. If you are not successful, your deposit will be returned to you after we have reviewed your application.

We often receive a high volume of applications for festival campaigners, so please apply early. As part of the selection process, we may also contact applicants by phone to discuss your application in more detail.

Please note that if you do not complete your profile (submitting your video, writing your paragraph and for Glastonbury, choosing a second festival) within two weeks then we reserve the right to cancel your application. Your full deposit will be returned, provided you have no other active applications. We are implementing this new process to ensure that as many people as possible can apply due to the high demand of requests.

Because demand is high, to be considered for a campaigner place at Glastonbury you will need to sign up to campaign at a second festival. If you cancel your second festival after Glastonbury, you will lose half of your deposit (unless you have a valid reason and you can provide evidence, in which case a £25 admin fee will apply instead).

Exciting News! We have introduced the Campaigning Superstar system for our Festival Campaigners. We will be giving our top Campaigners our Campaigning Superstar status, with 50 spaces up for grabs.

Only those who get above and beyond the campaigning targets set for each festival will become an Oxfam Festivals Superstar!

This means that when applications open for Campaigning, the Superstar applications will go to the top of our list for selection for your chosen festivals.

Some festivals will still have limited capacity, so if all our 2023 Superstars want the same festival in 2024, you will still be picked on the strength of your application.