THE founder of one of Cumbria’s biggest music festivals was overjoyed to receive a very special award.

Andy Smith, founder of Kendal Calling, attended the UK Festival Awards on December 5, from which he received an award for marketing.

The best marketing campaign award was given in recognition of the festival’s sustainability campaign which focuses on tents, and asks festival-goers to take them back home when they leave.

He explained: “We’ve had a fantastic response to that, with 97.7 per cent of attendants taking their tents home.

“The campaign is in its second year, and for many years we’ve had people leaving tents behind, and I didn’t really think there was anything we could do about it.

“But, having taken two years off, we took a deep dive into how we could alter behaviour, and we put a lovely campaign together and it worked really well.”

He explained that the campaign involves sending everyone who bought a ticket a letter explaining why they should take their tent home, but also reached to launching a video game called Flappy Tent on flappytent.com.

The game plays like Flappy Bird, and involves collecting abandoned tents from the festival ground - and has thousands of regular players from Japan.

Another award was received, however, that he described as ‘very special’.

A band known as the Lottery Winners, which has worked closely with the festival for many years, attended and gave Andy a handcrafted award for the best festival.

The award meant a lot to Andy, as he explained: “It’s got a wonderful marbling effect and some beautiful calligraphy, but there is no taking from the fact that it’s made of toilet roll tubes.

“The band has been together for absolutely ages, and we’ve been booking them since 2009.

“They recently got their first number one hit, and have had a number one album, it’s definitely a testament to patience."

Andy added that this masterpiece will be a fine addition to his more mainstream award given out that night.