Pleased to see an expansive array of organisations in receipt of funds and/or loans and grants. Amongst all the theatres and venues, I note a lot of lighting, sound and rigging companies seem to have been included. Uncertain if inclusive but one for @davebigpicture or @fentonsteve to give their opinions around. Glastonbury gets 900k but another 100k goes to Cropredy and Towersey Folk, left out last time, has this time been rewarded. Loads of decent small band venues too, as well as 1.5mill (!!) to the Roundhouse.
Culture recovery fund, part 2.
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Looking at the Midlands The Sugarmill in Stoke and the Sunflower Lounge in Birmingham have both got money as have KK’s Steel Mill in Wolverhampton and The Night Owl. Larger ones include Warwick Arts Centre, The Grand Wolverhampton and Birmingham Hippodrome. There also look like a fair few technical company awards judging by the names. Declaring an interest as my organisation was supported (not one of the above!). Some of those not supported may be part of universities or local authorities, who may have chosen not to apply. As ever it’s a passive approach that relies on people making a bid and filling out the forms – the Arts Council’s online platform Grantium is notoriously non-user friendly, quirky and full of jargon. So the absence of say the Hare and Hounds might be due to them not needing the money, being reluctant to disclose the required information or hurling their laptop across the room as the deadline looms and Grantium takes them to another page with baffling instructions.
I’ve no idea that it’ll be enough but all the venues I tend to frequent are get some cash so hopefully, when things get back near to normal they’ll still be there.
The two venues I mostly frequent (Portland Arms and Blue Moon) are primarily pubs with music rooms on the back and didn’t get anything (I don’t know if they even applied). The Flying Pig, which is a cosy pub to start with, got £50k – good on ’em, considering developers have been trying to knock it down for a decade or more.
The Cambridge Junction and Corn Exchange both got close on half a mill, as did the large PA hire company based in Peterborough – they’re lovely people to deal with and deserve to be kept afloat.
The venue I mostly (infrequently) operate in is a Baptist Chapel so doesn’t qualify. I have a day job and work for “expenses plus” – I doubt I’ll ever recover the cost of my equipment, even though I bought it all s/h, I bet I don’t often even make minimum wage.
I recognise a handful of names on the list, other than venues of course. There are two that are more familiar to me: a local crewing agency and a medium sized hire company. The majority of those on the list are music or theatre based whereas I’ve always worked in the dull corporate world and I would guess that most people in that area either wouldn’t qualify or wouldn’t think to apply. Good luck to those that got grants. It’s been a shit year, the fallout from which isn’t over yet and amazingly, most companies seem to have managed to not go under. Fingers crossed for the autumn.
From some industry analysis on the awards from artsprofessional (dull but insightful website)
These include Lamp and Pencil, which builds technical infrastructure for productions and has been awarded £120,000. White Light Limited, which provides technologies and control systems to event companies and cultural institutions, will receive £1m.
Others have not been so lucky. Organisations classified as ‘not discipline specific’ – almost 10% of round one awardees but less than 5% of round two awardees – include suppliers to the cultural sector.
Concerned that second round CRF grants have not reached the live event supply chain, membership body Plasa has launched a survey to assess how these organisations have benefitted from this fund. The data gathered will be presented to Government to demonstrate the level of support for this part of the arts ecology.
White Light started as a lighting company but became a “one stop shop” for sound and video. They have premises in The City of London which makes them convenient for Theatreland too. I’ve never worked for them but they and AT Comms, another beneficiary, were pretty aggressive with pricing pre Covid, which makes life difficult for everyone else. You could argue it’s just competition but I’ve seen this every few years where a few companies cut prices to the bone because they must get kit out on hire, only to find that they can’t generate enough income to cover their overheads. The end result is that a couple of large companies go bust and everyone else has to deal with the low pricing created by the race to the bottom.