In 2025, our wonderful Youth Theatre celebrated its 40th anniversary. Chichester Festival Youth Theatre (CFYT) welcomes 850 young people every week to build confidence, new skills and lasting friendships. We celebrated this milestone throughout the year, with some highlights including our Big Sing at Oaklands Park, an exhibition in the Festival Theatre foyer, which explored the history and impact that CFYT has had, and we ended the year with CFYT's magical production of Matt Haig's A Boy Called Christmas.

It costs £283,000 to run CFYT every year, and fees are £80 a term, far lower than the cost to run - leaving £146,000 that we need to raise.

Our aim is for CFYT to be accessible to as many young people as possible, and our bursary provision is key to ensuring this happens.  During our anniversary year, we raised money to help us continue offering bursaries to even more young people. This included a match-funding campaign in December, where every donation was doubled - and we're thrilled to have met our £40,000 target for this campaign, and want to say a huge thank you to everyone who made this happen!