FAQs

A free, sculpture trail through the streets, parks and open spaces of Cheltenham and Gloucester, running from July – September 2025. It will feature painted Lion sculptures; 30+ big and 30+ small to raise funds for Cheltenham and Gloucester Hospitals Charity, The Big Space Cancer Appeal.

Lions represent the courage needed to face cancer, as a patient and loved one. Lions work as a pride (family) to survive. They tenderly care for each other’s young, the elders and work together to find food.

It is a Wild in Art event brought to you by Cheltenham and Gloucester Hospitals Charity.

We are really pleased to have the BID from Cheltenham and Gloucester as our presenting partners for the respective areas.

The Pride of Lions is all about coming together as one. Businesses, artists, local communities and schools can celebrate the character of the area and its cultural identity. This world-class, large-scale public event will:

• Provide a trail through Cheltenham and Gloucester centres, parks and open spaces.
• Thousands are encouraged to become a ‘tourist in their own county’ and discover or rediscover their community
• Increase awareness, footfall and visitor spend
• Engage local and regional professional artists
• Provide a unified platform for businesses and organisations to engage with their own communities and customers
• Create an education programme for schools, using creativity as a learning device
• Attract regional and national visitors to Cheltenham, Gloucester and the surrounding areas
• Showcase the creativity of Gloucestershire: its heritage, architecture and culture
• Provide community engagement, fun and excitement!

There are a wide range of sponsorship opportunities on offer. Each level provides a variety of benefits to suit your marketing, public relations and corporate social responsibility objectives.

For sponsorship enquiries please contact Karen Organ on karen.organ@nhs.net

For general enquiries please contact Carrie Smith on ghn-tr.lionsatlarge@nhs.net

• Fantastic PR opportunities
• Being aligned with a key event in Cheltenham and Gloucester that will have a lasting impact in 2025 and beyond
• The direct introduction of your brand to new customers through interaction with the trail
• Raising your brand awareness through interaction with the Lions at Large app and web pages
• Showcase and bring footfall to your business
• Opportunity for increased revenue with the app reward
• Providing business-to-business networking opportunities
• VIP invites to events and workshops associated with the trail
• Increasing brand awareness through long-term exposure (12 -18 months)
• Marketing opportunities through association with your own stories in media, online, and internal communications

Projects of this kind in similar-sized cities have demonstrated an uplift in visitor numbers, and increased spend, with people staying longer.

For example, in 2021, Worcester’s Big Parade created lots of fun, excitement, smiles and visitors to the city:

• 96% of Worcester visitors said the trail had inspired them to stay longer than usual in the city and almost half visited four times or more!
• On average they spent £27 during their visit, with 40% spending over £40 in a single trip.
• 72% said they explored parts of the city they wouldn’t normally visit
• 56%+ said they posted on social media before, during and after visiting and it was the most common way people heard about the trail
• 18,000+ paper trail maps were collected from outlets across the city
• 94% of sponsors felt that the trail helped to promote their business to those in and around Worcester
• 88% of sponsors believe Worcester’s Big Parade had a positive impact on their business

* WBP Evaluation Project carried out independently my MEL Research – August 2022.

All the large Lions will be sponsored by businesses. The little Lions will be paid for by local schools or community groups or, a company has kindly sponsored a cub for them. The trail is a full-cost recovery project and it is thanks to our partners and sponsors that it comes to Cheltenham and Gloucester.

Wild in Art is the leading producer of spectacular public art events that entertain, enrich, inform and leave a lasting legacy. It brings together businesses and creative sectors with schools and local communities through the creation of uniquely painted sculptures.

Since 2008 Wild in Art has animated cities across the world including Manchester, Sydney, Auckland, Cape Town and São Paulo, and created trails for the London 2012 Olympics, the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Historic Royal Palaces and Penguin Random House.

Wild in Art events have:

• Enabled over £23.6m to be raised for charitable causes
• Injected £3.8m into local creative communities
• Engaged over 1 million young people in learning programmes
• Helped millions of people of all ages to experience art in non-traditional settings

wildinart.co.uk | @wildinart | #wildinart

Our call to artists is now live (from Thursday 1st of August 2024). You can download our Artist Information Pack and Artist Template from the Artists page of our website.
Please ensure you read the Artist Information Pack in detail as it includes important information about the application process. It also includes a timeline and handy checklist for your submission.

There are two stages to the selection process;

Stage 1: The initial submissions will be shortlisted. Artists will be notified if their designs have been shortlisted to stage 2. Artists will be informed by the 16th December on whether they have been shortlisted for Stage 2.

Stage 2: Sculpture sponsors will attend a selection event, where they will select their chosen design to adorn their sculpture.

Successful Artists will be notified following the Selection Event, which will take place in January 2025.

Application forms and design templates must be submitted by 11.59pm on Friday 1st of November 2024.

We welcome applications from all artists, whether local or further afield.
The reason we encourage local artists is so that you can easily access our shared painting space and involve yourself in the project as a whole.

We will look at each application on their own merit and for those further afield artists, we will make an individual plan regarding painting your sculpture (should your design be selected by a sponsor). If you would like to paint the sculpture in your own space there will likely be costs associated with the delivery and collection. Our aim is to keep this as low cost as possible.

Please refer to the ‘Artists Timeline’ section of the artists information pack (page 6).

Please refer to the ‘Planning your design’ section of the artists information pack (pages 7 and 8).

Please refer to ‘Submitting your roarsome design’ section of the artists information pack (page 9).

The Lions are H 1250mm x L 1700mm x W 600mm and weigh 40kgs.

If commissioned, you will be paid. Each artist will be paid £1000. Payment will be made in two instalments; 50% on receival of the Lion and 50% on return of the completed sculpture.

Some artists may choose to waive this fee in support of Cheltenham and Gloucester Hospitals Charity, but this isn’t an expectation.

The Lion Sculpture will be provided to you at no charge. However, the cost of all materials, is your responsibility, with the exception of the varnish, which will be provided.

Painting will take place in a public painting space, location TBC. Should you choose to paint your sculpture elsewhere, you will be responsible for associated collection and delivery costs, along with insurance.

You will need to be available to paint a Lion for a period between March and May 2025. Allowing yourself enough time to complete the decoration process, varnish and drying time.

Shortlisted artists will be informed that they have been successful in progressing to Stage 2 of the process by Monday 16th December 2024.

Shortlisted designs will be presented to sponsors in January 2025. Artists will be informed after this event whether a sponsor has selected their design.

Following the trail, the sculptures will be auctioned in October 2025 to raise money for Cheltenham and Gloucester Hospitals Charity’s Big Space Cancer Appeal.

Full details of the Artist Programme can be found on our Artists Page. If you have any other questions, please email carrie.smith12@nhs.net

You can either create your design digitally or print out the ‘artist template’ and draw/colour/paint your idea onto the template.

If you are creating your idea with materials, please take a photograph of your creation and send it as one file with your application. Make sure you include the name of your creation and your email address on the template.

We appreciate that the template is 2D and the sculpture is 3D. We understand that if you got selected, your design would not directly translate onto the sculpture. We ask that you ensure that your design is something that would look similar enough when translating your design from 2D to 3D.

We ask that you do your best to show a true representation of what a lion painted by you would look like. Please do not annotate or mark up the Lion design.

You can always add supporting information to further explain in the application. If you feel it necessary to send any other images please send them via email to carrie.smith12@nhs.net.

To paint your sculpture we recommend , Acrylic Paint, Emulsion Paint, Spray Paints (not solvent based) or Acrylic Pens (e.g Posca).

DO NOT USE Poster Paints, Watercolour or Gouache, Felt tip pens, solvent-based markers such as sharpies or anything solvent-based as these may react to the specialist varnish you need to apply.

Please complete the following form:

https://cheltenhamgloucesterhospitalscharity.beaconforms.com/form/45b8273b

Please also ensure you include your design (both sides if applicable) by uploading one file.

Applications must be submitted by Friday 1^st November at 11:59pm.

Each application and design will be marked according to the below criteria (in order of importance)

• Will the design look good on the street/as part of the trail? Will the community and visitors be able to relate to it? Would someone want to buy it at auction?
• What is the story behind the artist and the design? (Information that is put into the application form)

If the applications are competitive and we are struggling to shortlist based on the above alone then we will go to the below criteria (these are in no priority order)

• Splitting out into themes so we have a variety of designs/colours etc
• What do we think the sponsors would like?
• Will the artist paint in the shared space?
• Where is the artist located? Local vs further afield

Everyone who has applied will receive an email by Monday 16^th of December to inform them whether they have been shortlisted to stage 2 of the process.

This will be completed at an event in January 2025.

A whole host of things happen when we have our artists. There’ll be an artist charter and agreement. We will provide lots of information to ensure you are happy with the painting and varnishing process and plenty of opportunity to network with others and be involved throughout the trail.

Please check our artist information pack to see if your question has been answered in there:

https://lionsatlarge.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Lions-at-Large-Artist-Information-Pack.pdf

If it hasn’t, please get in touch via email: carrie.smith12@nhs.net