Volunteering at the 2024 Festival

We greatly value and appreciate your support for the premier cultural event on the English Riviera. Whilst our main venue is Torre Abbey in Torquay, events are also held at other venues across the English Riviera at different times during Festival week. The Festival includes talks, panel discussions, exhibitions, play and story readings, theatre and musical performances indoors and outdoors. There are a variety of different roles you could take on as one of our volunteers.

For more information on what working as a Festival Volunteer entails, please find out below.

Festival Volunteer

No one is expected to do everything! We use a form to find out what each individual volunteer would like to do.
Festival Volunteers decide what they would like to do. Some of the ways that you can help are set out below.

Festival publicity:

• raising awareness of the Festival and specific Festival events with your friends and networks
• raising awareness of the Festival’s annual new writing competition for children/young people
• helping to distribute the Festival programme
• helping to manage the Festival’s website, ticketing page and social media accounts

Helping to manage Festival events:

• liaising with the Festival Producer, the Festival Volunteer Coordinator, venue staff and others as required
• understanding emergency procedures at the venues where you are volunteering and, in the unlikely but possible event of an emergency, liaising with venue staff to ensure audience members are evacuated safely
• answering general queries and directing ticket-holders to Festival events
• setting out rooms and performance spaces ready for the audience
• greeting ticket-holders and collecting tickets on the door
• ushering audience members to their seats and ensuring that anyone using a wheelchair has everything they need
• attending events where you are volunteering (without charge)
• working microphones during Q&A sessions
• serving refreshments at Festival events and helping to clear up afterwards
• selling raffle tickets and merchandise at events to support the Agatha Christie Festival Charity

Helping by acting as an escort for Festival events:

• driving special guest artists/writers/performers by car to/from their hotel or public transport hubs, and sometimes accompanying them at events. You will need your own car for this.

Qualifications:

• no previous experience is needed, nor do you need to be an authority on the work of Agatha Christie!

You will need to be:

• over 16
• honest, reliable and punctual
• confident in using a mobile phone to be able to keep in regular contact with the Festival Producer
• practical and hard-working
• enjoy working with people
• sympathetic to our ambition to ensure that all Festival events are accessible and welcoming
• willing to wear an exclusive Festival Volunteer T-shirt and a badge when acting as a volunteer at Festival events.

We also value language and other specific skills, including driving.

Please note that we will hold any personal information you provide for the purposes of applying to be a Festival Volunteer in line with our privacy policy.