Leadership Project
The Project
I have decided to run a small arts event with the aim to increase the participation of young people in the arts and give young people a chance to show their work. I am going to break down a response to the following:
Who is my project for? - Young people, aged between 11 and 19 predominantly
What do I know about this group? - Where I live there is a select number of youth theatres and drama clubs, that, on the surface, look as if they would suffice. However the clubs and stage schools are relatively expensive and not inclusive therefore of a variety of people. The target group lives in an area where there is a low level of accessible public transport or open access arts with no arts centre in the area. The closest being the Theatre Royal which does not offer an open arts centre to young people anyway, and is still closed for refurbishment until later this year. This group tends to visit the town centre and most attend school whilst nearly all of the target group use the internet.
So what am I going to do? - I am going to try and put on an event that is free and open to young people to attend. It will have workshops in a variety of dramatic arts and alternative arts as well showcased performances by local people, particularly young people. To give the opportunity to freely access the arts, get inspired and get information, and simply have a go if they wish.
Motivating my participants? - My project is aimed at comprising of and ending with a public event. The participants will be young people from the target age group as people coming along to the event to take part. But also as people coming to perform or assist in running the event. In order to motivate those that are helping me I will try and cover their expenses and provide lunch on the day. In order to motivate the participating participants I will be able to offer them free workshops where they can learn new skills.
The team for it - In order to produce the event successfully I will need some help from a variety of people in the varied roles needed. To start with I will be able to work myself to liase with possible venues, and collect costs etc. I will then need a small group of young people to act as the group applying for the funding to run the event and feed in other ideas as to what should be happening when. When it gets to the day itself I will need people (paid and voluntary) to fill the roles of: Child Protection, First Aid, Technical Managers, Stage Crew, FOH managers, Workshop leaders, Box Office, Performers, Marketing Manager and Alternative Arts performers/leaders.
The resources I will need -
- Marketing materials: Posters, Flyers, Website, Through other newsletters & media
- Finance: A grant to fund the event costs, someone to hold the grant
- People: To fill the jobs and roles indicated above
- Venue: Suitable for the event, giving the right atmosphere and cultural surroundings
- Equipment: Sound Equipment, Weather materials, exhibition materials, chairs, crowd control
- Subsistence: Water, Food
- Evaluation: Online surveys, spoken word conversations, camera equipment
Plans for the Public Event - The full details can be found in the appendices from the screenshots of www.goldevent.org.uk, the 2 funding applications to Grants for the Arts (Arts Council England) & Youth Opportunities Fund (Suffolk Youth & Connexions Service). The plans for the public event are basically; to have an exhibition of local stage schools, theatres & careers service, to have a number of drama workshops including physical theatre, melodrama & improvisation, an alternative arts workshop of staff & poi mainly, performances of stilt walking, fire performing, singing, jazz music and dancing.
As the actual day plans came together in the end they looked like this:
- 12pm - 5.15pm = Exhibitions for information about local arts organisations & arts careers
- 12.30pm - 1.00pm = First drama workshop - Improvisation
- 1.15pm - 1.45pm = Second drama workshop - Melodrama
- 2pm - 2.15pm = Drama Performance - Selections from the first 2 workshops!!
- 2.30pm - 3.00pm = Juggling Workshop - Very Limited places
- 3.15pm - 3.45 = Third Drama Workshop - Physical Theatre
- 4.00pm - 4.30pm = Fourth Drama Workshop - Improvisation
- 4.45pm - 5.00pm = Alternative arts Show
- Showcase:
|
Act |
How Long |
Time |
1 |
LMA |
20 |
5.1 |
2 |
AA awards |
5 |
5.3 |
3 |
Hannah |
5 |
5.35 |
|
C1 |
2 |
5.4 |
4 |
Savannah |
5 |
5.42 |
|
C2 |
4 |
5.47 |
5 |
Theatre Train |
5 |
5.51 |
|
C3 |
3 |
5.56 |
6 |
Chelsea & Heidi |
3 |
5.59 |
|
C4 |
5 |
6.02 |
7 |
Josh |
14 |
6.07 |
|
C5 |
2 |
6.21 |
8 |
Jerisinha |
7 |
6.23 |
The marketing plan for the public event; I will distribute posters and flyers to all the high schools in Bury St Edmunds, around to shops and other facilities for young people including the youth club, SCA, Abbey gardens and Bury Bowl. I will also get it mentioned on a variety of directory websites & the radio along with the local youth council website and of course its own site with all the information needed.
How will I know it has worked / evaluation? - I know the event is successful when at the end of the day I have been receiving good feedback, people have enjoyed themselves and I have drawn a crowd for the performances. I will do this through observation and conversations with staff, volunteers and participants along with an online survey for people to fill out where possible.
Key things for me to consider - Insurance, child protection, fire safety, marketing, venue suitability.
Summary
Project Aim ~ To increase the participation of young people in the arts and give young people a chance to show their work.
Desired Outcomes ~
- Young People to get involved in the technical production side
- Young People to lead drama workshops
- Young people to have a chance to experience drama and alternative arts
- Young people to be able to access information on the arts and careers
Project Report
What Happened? / What was produced? / How did the public event work?
Throughout the process I came across challenges to overcome. Firstly the local council wanted me to downsize what I was trying to achieve to allow me to do it, and as such I was able to negotiate and compromise on this to a level where it could still be a great event for young people where new skills could be learnt and young people would still be able to take part. The second challenge was getting the funding for the event, as a 17 year old putting on a not for profit event I found there was very few people that would fund me. In fact only one place that I could access would even consider me as a lone person putting on an event, the Grants for the Arts scheme, but even they unfortunately rejected me citing my lack of ability to put on the event. Of course I proved them very wrong in producing the event with the help of some friends that formed a group to apply for the funding for the idea from the Youth Opportunities Fund. I was successful in this as I had also gained the support from a local private CIC for youth services who would hold the money for me, and provide me with support and advice. In fact they became invaluable being able to arrange the fire safety equipment and insurance for me once I had given them the details. Once I had overcome these, secured the venue and date and then secured the funding, I could confirm the people and suppliers I needed. I was able to use the Theatre Royal’s box office as the ticket agent in order to make use of telephone, in-person and online booking! I was able to use CEG Theatre Services (the company I had previously set up) to take care of all the technical aspects, including extra safety management support, the equipment and stage management. Bassline Entertainments provided the Stilt walker and Fire performer whilst I had agreed with Subway (!!) to provide the volunteer / staff lunch. The venue became the one I had wanted to use. For the festival feel I wanted an outdoor venue (which itself brought its inevitable problems, on the day mainly the wind). I also wanted somewhere that could be reached easily by public transport, and that was easy to find, and would have its own foot traffic anyway. I found this in the Abbey Gardens at a very reasonable cost, and I was able to get in the night before as well as first thing on the Saturday, and furthermore it provided a great cultural setting and a special area naturally segregated for the exhibitions, FOH tent and performances/audience/workshops. Please see the pictures from the goldevent.org.uk website and others included in the appendix for this visually.
Unfortunately on the day the model I wanted to try with workshops in the morning followed by the performances did not seem to work with a very low number of people around early on as it seems the marketing did not get out early enough and I perhaps should have aimed at the younger double figures rather than the 14/15 I was really aiming at. I say this because the first 2 workshops had to be cancelled due to not enough people to make running them worthwhile, but the second two drama workshops were much better with many more people than had pre-booked turning up to them. And the alternative arts workshop was a hit with numerous people having a go and really seeming to enjoy themselves a lot. I did find a small problem during the alternative arts workshop as with the nature of an outdoor venue the fire fuel could not be locked away but simply stored out of the heat in one of the stage marquees and a girl tried to steal / “borrow” it to set a staff alight but fortunately the safety precautions put in place with staff on the look out and there being tight restrictions on the use of the fuel she was spotted straight away by CEG staff and we were able to retrieve the fuel before it could even be opened. With regards to the exhibition, it wasn’t as big as I was hoping it could have been but it did feature a few local youth theatre’s / stage schools and the careers service so still providing useful information on how to get involved in the arts now and in the future. In place of the drama performance selections the workshop leaders and a couple other volunteers ran an improthon that did seem to amuse the small crowd that was starting to gather. By the time the planned performance showcase came about there was a good number of people (of all ages) gathered in the audience area and we had some great music, and performances that the crowd seemed to really warm to (literally with the fire performance) and it really gave the student technicians that were brought in to experience and learn more about tech theatre some good experience, fulfilling this side even more, giving young people further access to the arts and a positive experience.
As such I believe that the arts produced by the event has been some great technical theatre & performing experience with all the young people involved. And in fact some of the things that came out of the workshops themselves. But the most important thing I think is that people were enjoying themselves.
Feedback
In the appendices are the comments made via the online survey from participants and others involved in the event. Fortunately these all reflect a good rating and an enjoyable day. With 60% of people rating the overall quality as excellent (5) and the other 40% rating it Above Average (4 of 5). With the ratings for ‘Staff Friendliness’, ‘The Venue’, ‘Overall Quality’, ‘Enjoyment’, ‘atmosphere’ & ‘overall organisation’ all being ranked top as 5 of 5. Throughout the day my conversations included feedback as ‘I loved the staff spinning’, ‘the workshop was great’, ‘the singers were good’. All very positive basically and seemed to reflect the general mood. The feedback has indicated that improvements could be made like a better schedule for workshops & more marketing and performances.
The Learning Curve
I have learnt a lot about arts management from this event. Really way too much to talk about but has included everything from how to arrange insurance, to how to line up a set of performances. I have of course learnt a lot about every aspect of producing a live arts event and how to market it. For example I have learnt that in order to market an event it needs weeks of pre-marketing and then for it to be everywhere the potential market would see it. A major factor has been communicating with a range of people in order to organise everything, and as such I really believe that I have learnt a lot about communication skills such as that it is good to follow up phone calls with emails and vice-versa and to have a face-to-face meeting wherever possible. I had to do this in arranging the venue, technical side, and funding. But one of the key things I have learnt alongside people management is trust and reliance on other people, when it came to the event itself it would have been impossible for me to do everything, so I was lucky enough to have brought together a strong team. I would have liked to have been out there marketing the event, then taking the ticket bookings, then MC’ing the showcase whilst also operating the sound for it. But having a marketing team, technical team & FOH team meant that I didn’t have to fly about covering it all and they were able to operate with independence under direction to ensure a smooth day. As already highlighted the earlier part of the day was a real worry, but by the end of it with a decent size crowd I felt a good sense of achievement. One thing I am definitely taking away from it is something that actually someone wrote in the online evaluation, ‘the planning covered every eventuality’, a statement which I truly deem to be the backbone to an event, if I hadn’t planned in case of rain people may have got wet, if I hadn’t planned to have someone there at box office in case we didn’t sell all the tickets prior to the event then we wouldn’t have been able to have a dedicated point of contact with such experience.
What would I do differently next time?
I would start by obtaining the funding much earlier on so that the final confirmations aren’t so rushed, and as such I would try and avoid the trap of needing every detail planned to apply, but the funding to confirm the size and details of the plans. I would also market the event earlier and in more ways. I would be more insistent on the local press to get more media before hand in addition to the radio slot so as to increase awareness. I would also apply to the funding body to enable a small roadshow to be out around town and local schools the week before the event, with an alternative arts artiste, a couple of actors and a singer to give a taster performance for about 20mins between them. This would give a great marketing campaign and get people interested in coming down to the event. In an ideal world I would also have then extended the event to move to an indoor venue (perhaps the Athaneum which is next to the Abbey Gardens already) to continue with a couple of larger performances and a buffet dinner – an event spectacular moving from the workshops to the performances to a gala evening!!
Revisiting my desired outcomes
Desired Outcomes ~
- Young People to get involved in the technical production side
- Yes they did, a few local students came to learn and help in the set-up, operation and get-out of the event as led by experienced staff.
- Young People to lead drama workshops
- Yes. Senior young people from the local youth theatre led the workshops.
- Young people to have a chance to experience drama and alternative arts
- Yes. A number of CYP attended workshops and performances on these areas.
- Young people to be able to access information on the arts and careers
- Yes. An exhibition was available where a few local youth theatres and stage schools were available, information on the Arts Award was also there along with the Connexions Service who offered career advice for those interested in the arts.
^Some audience members^