Purpose, place, people and passion: The Case of the Lammermuir Festival, East Lothian, Scotland

Abstract

In 2017 Cheltenham Music Festival, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Lammermuir Festival and Welsh National Opera were all nominated for the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award for best concert series or festival. Three of the nominees for this prestigious award were organisations with over seventy years of history. One, the Lammermuir Festival, was only in its seventh season. Yet it was the Lammermuir Festival that took home the award, achieving nationwide recognition less than a decade after it was conceived. While there are many reasons for such rapid success, this chapter will focus on three of them: a clear sense of purpose, effective stakeholder relationships, and collective shared leadership. As will become evident, uniting all three is the passion of the small team that created the festival and who continue to deliver it to this day.