Heritage Open Days is England’s favourite heritage festival!

Every September some 46,400 volunteers across England organise 5588 events to celebrate our fantastic history and culture. It's your chance to see hidden places and try out new experiences – all of which are FREE to explore.

Organised in partnership with Nottinghamshire County Council, this free training session is aimed at heritage sites and providers in and around the Nottinghamshire area. It will introduce you to Heritage Open Days and why it's a good idea to get involved.

The dates of the festival this year are 6-9 & 13-16 September 2018.

The workshop will cover:

An Introduction to HODs

• Background on Heritage Open Days
• The yearly cycle and key dates
• Top tips for registering an event
• An introduction to marketing an event
• How to get the most out of your local & national HODs team

Introduction to programming

• Some top tips on how to create and organise incredible events
• How to make your event more family friendly
• The themes for the year and how to create events around them
• A Q&A, as well as a general discussion to share past successes and lessons learnt

You can also hear first-hand what HODS did for the William Booth Birthplace Museum and get a briefing about the Mayflower 400 project.

This year the Tour of Britain, the biggest event in British cycling and UK’s largest free-to-watch sporting event, will pass through Nottinghamshire on the same weekend as Heritage Open Days. Find out more on how you can benefit from both.

The day will conclude with an optional tour of the Bestwood Winding Engine.

Refreshments are provided but participants should provide their own lunch.