Anyone with a creative idea that you want to make happen during the festival. You can be an artist, maker, performer or musician or a creative community group or Dartmoor resident. 

We would like to see these commissions fund a variety of different projects. Your proposal could be an art exhibition or project, a music performance, a workshop, a talk, an online project, a creative walk, a poetry reading - anything you would like to see happen. 

Projects don’t have to attract a big audience, they could even be aimed at a small specific group. 

During the Rivers & Moorland Festival 5-7 June 2026. It can take place throughout the whole weekend or at a specific time during the weekend. 

An exhibition or an online project could extend beyond the festival period, but we would like to see it be launched during the weekend. 

Projects can take place within Ivybridge or elsewhere on Dartmoor. It can be indoors or outdoors or can have no fixed location (for example, an online project, a walk or a walking guide). 

The main festival activity is currently centred around Victoria Park and Longtimber Woods, though your project doesn’t have to be.  

If you have an idea for a talk, a workshop or similar indoor activity and don’t have a location identified we may be able to include it as part of the programmed talk section at an existing venue.

The environment is a main theme of the festival so we want projects to be considerate of things like where materials are coming from and how any waste is managed.

Wherever possible we want the festival to be inclusive and accessible, however we recognise that projects on low budgets using existing older buildings or outdoor spaces might find this difficult. 

When selecting projects we will want to make sure that a good amount of them can be accessed by different audiences and that projects can communicate how accessible they are, clearly. 

At this stage we just want you to show us that you can think about how accessible your project is, or could be, and be able to talk about it clearly. 

If your project is selected you will have the ultimate responsibility for the safety and legality of your project. You will need to do a risk assessment before your project takes place. If you have never done this before we can point you in the direction of some resources and help. 

All projects will need to have all permissions in place and an adequate level of public liability insurance. This includes a Temporary Events License if needed. You can include these in your project budget!

Artists might like to consider membership of a-n (the artists network) as it offers a public liability and other artist insurance as part of its membership. 

You can spend the commission money on anything you need to make the project work. This includes materials, venue hire, people’s time, insurance or TENs applications.

The money you ask for could fund the whole or some of the project. 

The festival is looking to fund exciting projects that will inspire people to be creative and think about their environment more.

After the application deadline a selection panel will review all the applications and meet to decide which will be funded. 

When selecting projects the panel will be looking not just at the individual projects but the festival programme as a whole. We will be looking to fund a variety of different types of projects in different locations. We will also want to make sure that a good amount of the projects are accessible to different needs. 

We will notify selected projects by 13 March 2026