Freedom Festival will not go ahead in its normal format this year after large public gatherings were banned because of Covid-19. It celebrates Hull’s independent spirit through artistic and cultural expression and attracts tens of thousands of people each year.

This year it has been announced the festival will be delivered online and will feature a programme of events broadcast digitally via an app developed by Sauce.

The platform allows for audiences to digitally access events and performances.

Mikey Martins, Artistic Director and Joint Chief Executive of the Freedom Festival Arts Trust, left, with Jim Wardlaw, Sauce’s Chief of Product and Design. Sauce is working as Freedom Festival’s digital partner to bring performances direct to people’s homes.

The award-winning business, based at Hull’s Centre for Digital Innovation (C4DI) tech hub, had already been working on an app to complement the traditional festival, which was to include key information such as dates, times, locations and descriptions of events and performances for people to attend.

Following lockdown, the focus quickly changed to developing the new platform.

It will also be used to enhance audience engagement to inform and influence future festivals.

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Jim Wardlaw, Chief of Product and Design at Sauce, said: “The Freedom Festival team were already looking to develop an app to improve the overall experience and enable the festival to be more interactive.

“The project changed pretty rapidly as soon as we went into lockdown because everyone realised we had to plan for a very different festival.

“We redeveloped the app to be able to host performances and, working in partnership with Freedom, we were also able to provide consultation about the best ways to stream different types of events and performances.

“Freedom Festival will now be able to reach audiences via the app throughout the year, not just over one weekend. It will also allow Freedom to engage more with audiences in the long term. They’ll be able to use push notifications to get feedback and gauge opinion, which they’ll then be able to act on.”

Users will be able to view live streams and videos of recorded performances, as well as take part in contribute to interactive podcasts and talks.

The app includes details about the full programme of events, allows users to plan their own experience by registering for performances, and features all the latest news and information about the festival.

Hull's Freedom Festival to return in digital form thanks to tech firm Sauce