When planning a performing arts event it is important to
consider the ways in which the project is going to be funded, things won’t just
appear from nowhere. Funding is not provided for any specific organisations,
individuals and small groups are able to receive the same funding as a larger
organisation.
Large organisations, such as the Arts Council are relied on to provide funding and financial support
to the arts. The Arts Council invest £1.4 billion of public money from the
government (received from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport) and an estimated
£1 billion from the National Lottery into arts and culture across England. This
investment funds a wide range of activities, including theatre, dance and
music. The funding that the Arts Council provides helps them to achieve their
mission of “Great art and culture for everyone”, and this can be seen through
their promise to fund all types of activities within the arts.
The Arts Council want to use their investment and expertise
to encourage and support artistic and cultural excellence across the country,
and they hope to do so by working alongside education bodies and partners such as the British Council as well as
investing in activities which build on the cultural legacy of the London 2012
Olympics. The council wish to represent the height of ambition, talent and
skill that will demonstrate England’s status as a world centre for cultural
excellence. The theatres supported by the Arts Council include audience
specific work (children/rural communities), companies that focus on new
writing, or devised work and national companies such as the RSC and the
National Theatre. They promise to support artists and organisations as they continue
to challenge and experiment. They state that they know theatre is not created
without taking risks and they will work alongside the sector to increase its
ability to deal with those risks by identifying new partners, markets and opportunities.
The Arts Council have a budget each year that is divided
into different amounts that are allocated to organisations around the UK. Applications
have to be made for the funding. Grants are available for activities carried
out over a set period and which engage people in England in arts activities and
help artists and organisations carry out their work. The Arts Council’s main
programme is the “Grants for the arts” which is responsible for spotting
new ideas and nurturing fresh talents. Between 2012 and 2015 a Lottery budget
of £202 million was set aside for Grants for the Arts. The council has been
granting awards since its launch in 2003 and in February this year alone they
have offered a total of 313 awards with a total value of £6,464,622. Recipients
include the Milton Keynes Festival Fringe, Worcestershire County Council and
the National Youth Music Theatre.
The link below shows all the awards ever to be granted by
the Arts Council and it shows the broad spectrum of performance projects that
have been funded, the Arts Council is an organisation crucial to bringing new
projects to life. http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/funding/grants-arts/awards-made-area-and-artform/
12 National Lottery distribution bodies are responsible for
allocating the funding raised by the National Lottery. The income raised for
Good Causes from ticket sales is paid into the National Lottery Distribution
Fund and allocated to the distributing bodies. Up to 31st March 2013
the money delivered for National Lottery Projects was allocated as follows:
·
Health, Education, Environment, and charitable
causes – 40%
·
Sports – 20%
·
Heritage – 20%
·
Arts – 20%
The Lottery is responsible for heavily subsidising the
funding of the arts. For example the refurbishment of the National Opera House
in the early 2000s was funded mainly by money provided by the lottery. As shown
above the Arts sector receives 20% from the National Lottery Project and so
there is a lot of competition when participants are trying to gain funding for
their projects and there are several requirements that must be met for the funding
to be granted, such as that the project must reach audiences in England.
Most funding organisations for the performing arts are
working to show the skill and talents in the performing arts sector in England.
Up until 29th March 2013 the Foundation for Sports and Arts was also providing all important
funding for the arts. Many communities, organisations and individuals
throughout Great Britain and Northern Ireland were benefiting from major
capital projects and bursaries. Their goal was to increase active participation
in sports and the arts, especially amongst young people. The FSA would award
grants of up to £75,000. The funding would go towards improving facilities and
refurbishing buildings, as well as widening access and supporting creativity.
Smaller
funds and grants are also a possible way for the arts to be supported and
funded, as well as self funding of
the arts, which allows the individuals/groups to raise their own funds
for their projects. Forms of self funding include:
Fundraising: Fundraising can
include activities such as cake sales and bag packing in a supermarket. These
activities encourage the general public to donate to the project you are
undertaking. Fundraising is an efficient way to raise funds and is simple to
organise. It is important that when organising something like a cake sale the
prices are reasonable or there is a risk of no money being raised. You must
always thinking of the customers as they are the ones funding your project.
Ticket Sales: Selling the
tickets for your own show is also a could way of self-funding as you are able
to set the prices of the tickets, again it must be considered how much the
audience are willing to pay for the show.
Sponsorship: You could undertake
an activity or challenge, such as a fun run or shaving your hair and then
getting your family and friends, work colleagues etc. to sponsor you. This is
an effective way to raise funds as the sponsor form would allow you to keep
track of how much money you’ve raised and you could create a chart that shows
when you reach your target, this could further encourage people to sponsor
you.
Advertising: Advertising events
are the best way to encourage people to attend a show or performance.
Advertising can be as simple as putting posters in schools, shops, around town.
Online advertising is just as prominent now, and people are now able to invite
people to events on Facebook. Advertising not only encourage people to buy
tickets to shows but it also encourages backers to attend, and they could
potentially offer further funds towards the project.
If
a project is lucky enough to get a Backer
this means that the individual or company will be the financial backer and provide
the funds necessary. A backer will consider the project if they feel it has
potential and there is financial prospect, they want to put money into something
that will result in them gaining positively from it. Cameron Mackintosh is a well known backer who
has produced several successful musicals around the world, “Miss Saigon”, “My
Fair Lady” and “Oliver” to name but a few. Another form of backing is crowd funding which involves
looking for backers to donate funds but is done on a larger scale. Kickstarter is a funding group
for creative projects, including films and music. It allows anyone to make a
pledge for projects that they express an interest in. Since April 2009, over $1
billion has been pledged by more than 5 million people, funding more than
50,000 creative projects. These projects are able to happen because people are
able to directly support them by pledging online making Kickstarter is an easy
and efficient way to gain funding.
Drama UK is an example of an
organisation that provides funding for further training within the arts. They
provide a link between the theatre, media and broadcast industries and drama
training providers in the UK which helps them offer help and advice to students
wishing to train in the performing arts sector. They promise to provide anyone
interested in drama and the careers related to it with a route map to the training
and the opportunities available. Drama UK offer guidance for those who are
looking for funds to study at Drama School or at university as they are aware
of the challenges of covering the costs that come with further training. The
Drama UK website provides a list of useful funding websites such as The Student
Loans Company, NUS and The University of London Careers Service which will provide
answers about finance as well as offer possible loans and grants to those who
apply for them. When targeting prospective funders they suggest that you
approach local businesses or trusts that may support training in the arts and
you must be specific about how your needs and aims meet the objectives o f the organisation.
The BBC Performing Arts Fund looks to seek out and support aspiring individuals and community groups who may lack existing support or due to personal background or circumstance have been unable to achieve their potential without the support of the Fund. The Fund believes that offering mentorship and advice to individuals and community groups allows them to achieve their most ambitious goals. The charity is funded through revenue from the voting lines of BBC entertainment programmes, most recently being The Voice, which looks for new vocal talent from across the UK to support and nurture. Since 2003 they awarded over £4 million in grants and they have awarded bursaries to over 1,300 people and organisations. The Fund is the UK’s biggest funder of musical theatre in the charity sector, supporting 162 students to date.
The BBC Performing Arts Fund looks to seek out and support aspiring individuals and community groups who may lack existing support or due to personal background or circumstance have been unable to achieve their potential without the support of the Fund. The Fund believes that offering mentorship and advice to individuals and community groups allows them to achieve their most ambitious goals. The charity is funded through revenue from the voting lines of BBC entertainment programmes, most recently being The Voice, which looks for new vocal talent from across the UK to support and nurture. Since 2003 they awarded over £4 million in grants and they have awarded bursaries to over 1,300 people and organisations. The Fund is the UK’s biggest funder of musical theatre in the charity sector, supporting 162 students to date.
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My Own Event – Pantomime – Cinderella
The event I will organise will be two performances of the pantomime
“Cinderella” at the Centre for the Arts in Hitchin on the 14th December. As it
is already a published play we will have to pay the performance rights for the 2
shows that will take place on Saturday 14th (matinee and evening).
The show will be available to family and friends of the performers as well as
the general public and the matinee show will offer a family ticket for a family
of 4 for £20 (2 adults, 2 children). To promote the show we will place
advertisements in and around the Hitchin area to advertise the production and
encourage ticket sales. The college will be responsible for selling the tickets
for the show as a way of self-funding. The prices of the tickets will be
reasonable to encourage good ticket sales as an audience may not be willing to
pay high prices for tickets.
1.
Give as many examples of potential
income as you can within your budget.
160 adult +
80 concession = £1,520
80 + 160
concession = £1,360
120 adult +
120 concession = £1,440
240 adult =
1,680
240
concession = £1,200
120 adult +
30 family = £1,440
60 family =
£1,200
60 adult +
180 concession = £1,320
180 + 60
concession = £1,560
2.
Establish how many seats you have
within your venue.
There are
120 seats in the Hanger theatre
3.
How many nights will the show run
for?
The show
will run for one day only (Saturday 14th), with one matinee and one
evening show.
4.
How much would you like to charge per
ticket?
I will
charge £7 for adults and £5 for concession tickets (children and OAPs). For the
matinees show we will also offer a family ticket for the price of £20 for two adults
and two children.
5.
How many of these tickets will be
subsidised (student, OAP, etc) and how did you come to this figure?
I decided to
subsidise a third of the tickets for both shows (40 tickets) as children are
known to particularly enjoy coming to see Christmas pantomimes, but as pantomimes
are generally aimed at a slightly more adult audience it would be better to
have a larger number of adult tickets available for sale compared to
children/OAP tickets.
6.
If you have a shortfall in your
budget list the steps you would take to cover it?
A way that I
would deal with a short fall in my budget list would firstly look at other ways
in providing costume and technical equipment in a cheaper way. For example I
would use an in-house technical team, such as Da Vinci college students who are
able to supply the lighting and sound needed for the show. Another possible way
to cover a shortfall would be to look at the number of shows that have been
planned and see whether more should have been added. For example if the show
had proven to be particularly popular and has been selling out this would
suggest that more dates could have been added and this would have created a
higher income as more tickets would have been sold. To further cover a
shortfall the possibility of increasing the price of tickets could be
considered, however for my show I feel that this would not have been as
effective as it is a pantomime and people do not wish to pay an exorbitant amount
of money on a ticket.
7.
What factors can affect the income
within your budget?
The factor
that is most likely to affect the income within my budget would be ticket
sales. It is important that ticket sales are good to ensure that we are able to
make some profit after the outgoing funds have been paid for props and costume
etc. To ensure that ticket sales were good I would have to guarantee that
advertising is efficiently used to promote the shows and this would in turn
create a good profit which would decrease the loss.
8.
Look at the budget and establish how
many of the items you have listed could be provided either in house or from
other sources?
Most items
needed for my show are provided by the costume and prop cupboard at the college
and those that were not available within college resources were easily
resourced cheaply from local companies. Most of the budget was spent on the
hire of costume but the costumes were sourced efficiently as I used a group
discount as the costumes had to be hired in large numbers.
