Event Sponsorship

GO! Southampton is committed to supporting all events hosted in the city centre. Whether that’s a first-time community event or a large-scale annual festival, we are proud to see the diversity of events across the year come into Southampton.

To allow events to flourish and help them grow, we are providing a new sponsorship scheme that will offer financial support to organisers. This new scheme, running from 1st April 2024 to 31st March 2025, offers organisers two different types of grants to apply for:

  • Micro grants of up to £1,000
  • Major grants of up to £5,000

How to apply:

  1. Pick which grant you would like to apply for and download the relevant form (see below)
  2. Read through the application form carefully, including any deadlines
  3. Fill out the form and return to the relevant email address by the date provided
  4. All applications within the given deadlines will be scored individually against criteria from the Events Steering Group, consisting of BID member businesses and the BID team
  5. Once decisions have been made and approved at the Marketing & Events Steering Group, applicants will be notified by the given dates

Full guidelines and stipulations are laid out in the application forms but key conditions you must consider for all applications:

  • You can only apply for one micro OR one major grant within a given year
  • You cannot apply for more than 35% of your overall event costs
  • If we have previously sponsored your event/organisation twice since 2022, we may not be able to sponsor again
  • Unfortunately, we do not sponsor religious activities, formal education or solely commercial events
  • Please be aware our budgets are limited and we will not be able to fund every application that comes in

Please see below the timetable from April 2024 – March 2025.

Application deadline Approval process Applicant notified by
Q1 17th  April 23rd  April – 1st  May 8th May
Q2 24th June 1st  – 10th July 17th July
Q3 16th  September 23rd September – 2nd October 11th October

Q4

 1st January 6th  – 15th January 17th January

Please see the links to the forms below. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact Flo Bevis at flo.bevis@gosouthampton.co.uk

Micro Grants

Major Grants

Previously supported events:

Testimonials

Party in the Park 2022  

Jake Radwell
To anyone looking at applying for funding and working with GO! Southampton, we would say go for it. Not only was their funding very useful to an event like ours where we are FREE to all, but the support and ease of applying was second to none. We really appreciated being able to get their clients and levy payers involved as well, and this in turn really helped to make our event even more successful by offering such a vibrant offering.

Bedford Place Summer Festival 2020 – 2023

Caroline Osman
GO! Southampton have sponsored the Bedford Place Summer Festival for the last three years. The festival is a not for profit community event, that helps bring footfall and awareness of local businesses and our local area.  

Without this sponsorship contribution it wouldn’t have been possible to run the festival.  We raised a proportion of the money from stall holders attending, but needed the sponsership money upfront to be able to book some of the entertainment.  Applying for the money involved filling out an event support application form, which was straight forward and GO! also helped  promote the event and offer advice and support when I needed.  

Southampton Pride 2020 – 202

Julianne Watling-McCarthy  
The continued support of GO! Southampton has really helped us to keep Southampton Pride free for all to attend and make the event as accessible as possible Our event would not be possible without the sponsorship from local business and organisations and Go! Southampton has gone over and above to help us grow and achieve a wonderful inclusive event for the city. Thank you to all at Go! Southampton for your help and support!

BBAM! 2023

Dr. Abdoulie Sanneh, BBAM Organiser 
TUVAA and the BBAM Festival team are grateful to one of our main sponsors Go-Southampton for their amazing support with both the funding and the practical support to ensure that our first ever BBAM festival in Southampton became an unforgettable experience. They were seen as active partners in the planning and marketing of the event and were present at the event making an incredible 800 interactions. The event was able to create opportunities for black businesses and artists to make a huge statement and brought people to our city centre not only to enjoy but also to do some shopping. It was a proud moment for Southampton as BBAM 2023 was crowned as the best outdoor festival in the South. All these could not have happened without the support of Go-Southampton, Southampton city council and other partners. We and all our partners are looking forward to a bigger and better BBAM Festival 2024 on the 5th of October.