The bears have been brought to life by artists of all ages, both professional and amateur, and they are now in the wild for you to visit. Each bear has been made in Attercliffe by the brilliant Simpson Patterns Ltd which makes our bears extra special as they’re Sheffield born and bred!
The little bear is just over 1m tall in height and a big bear is 2.11m tall.
The inspiration for the bear for the theme of the trail came from the Botanical Gardens bear sculpture and through The Children’s Hospital Charity’s mascot, Theo. There is even a special Theo bear sculpture along the trail!
Although bears are often called grizzly, they are gentle and tolerant by nature. They can be empathetic, joyful, playful and social.
The design of the sculpture is based on the bear in the bear pit and designed by the same artist David Mayne. David adapted his design of his original bear and created a smooth version for both the Big and Little Bears for the trail before they were manufactured in Darnall, Sheffield.
The Bears are on the streets of Sheffield from 12th July to 29th September. Join our Bears of Sheffield mailing list or social media channels for updates through the trail.
Our trail maps can be found all across the city in different outlets. A full list of the places you can get a trail map from can be found here.
Trail maps have a suggested donation of £1 and you can also use the Bears of Sheffield website to follow the trail. As long as you are logged into your account you will be able to view the trail and collect your Bears as you go.
Yes! This will be held at Meadowhall from 14-17th October. A farewell event is where all of the sculptures come together for one last time, all in one place.
The names of the bears are decided by the artist creating the design, whether that is a professional artist or a school pupil.
Each big bear has been sponsored by kind-hearted organisations and businesses. It is their sponsorship which makes the trail possible.
Each sponsor chose a bear design from the artist’s submissions and ‘voila’ you have the start of a wonder relationship.
Lots of work has gone into making sure the trail can be enjoyed by everyone safely, here are a few examples of what we are doing behind the scenes:
• You will not need to scan a QRcode when collecting bears on the app. You will simply need to be within 5m distance of the sculpture, encouraging social distancing.
• All locations are being assessed and how they can encourage social distancing.
• Indoor locations are being readdressed to ensure social distancing can be achieved
• Touching sculptures will be discouraged.
• Clusters of Bears will be limited
We are working closely with Sheffield City Council and other partners to ensure the project adheres to government guidelines
Each bear will have a plaque with the school or sponsors logo and a short blurb about the sponsor.
There are lots of ways the Bears will raise money for Sheffield Children’s and we would love all of you to get involved. Whether you make a donation against your favourite bear or you take on a fundraising challenge, it all makes a difference. Here are some ideas: a sponsored walk around the trail, a how many Bears can you find challenge, get your street to put Bears in their windows.
Yes, at the end of the trail all of our lovely Big Bears will come together for one last time. The Little Bears will go back to the schools for them to keep. We will announce more information about the auction over the summer. Make sure you join the mailing list to be the first to find out.
To make sure your donation goes against your favourite Bear make sure you do this through their page on the website/app. This goes directly to that Bears’ total and at the end of the trail we will be able to see which Bear is our fundraising champion!
This year you do not need to download the app to be able to collect the Bears! The website works as a functional app so nothing needs to be downloaded to your phone. You can return to the website whenever you are out hunting and log in to your account. As long as you are logged in the Bears will all be collected in the same place!
This year to increase ease and safety the Bears do not have a QR code to collect them. To collect the Bears you just need to make sure you are within 5 metres of the Bear. Make sure you are close enough to the Bear and that you have the website open. When the Bear is ready to be collected it will look like it is jumping on your app, this means you have unlocked it and then you can collect it.
If you have forgotten your password this can be fixed easily in the on the website. On the login page there is an option to reset your password. this will then send an email to the address you registered your account with. This will allow you to reset your account and continue on your Bear hunt!
To login on a different device you just need to know the details for the account you have set up. You will need to login with the same email address and password and this will allow you to collect Bears across multiple devices.
When you unlock a Bear and collect them you will earn paw points for this. Different Bears will be worth different amounts of points. Certain Bears have a reward connect to them that you can redeem your paw points and claim. The more paw points you collect, the more you can access these rewards.