'We have £52 left': the dire future for England's small arts organisations
Nigel Price, owner of Shepperton Jazz Club in Spelthorne, Surrey
Of course it was disappointing not to be successful in this round of the cultural recovery fund (CRF). How could it not be? My venue is a small operation but has been utterly decimated by the impact of coronavirus.
Our club has £52 left in our business account for the future. I had sought help from other places before applying to Arts Council England, and found no help from the local council or the Music Venue Trust. It’s not that they didn’t want to help – because we are classified as a non-dedicated music venue we simply didn’t fit the criteria.
The minimum amount you could apply for in the CRF was £50,000. I didn’t need anywhere near that, but I didn’t know where else to turn; most of the venues I play in don’t need anything close to £50,000 either. We need, say, £5,000 or £6,000 – enough to see us through until this crazy situation is resolved and footfall returns.
There used to be an organisation called Jazz Services, funded by the Arts Council, which dealt with these kind of sums of money and provided valuable advice and information to musicians and promoters. Their funding was cut in 2014 – since then, the only access to Arts Council funding is through submitting horrendously complicated forms in a highly competitive environment. A small jazz club promoter who decides to bite the bullet and fill in one of these things may unwittingly find themselves up against somebody who has been filling in Arts Council forms professionally for years … and they are very good at it.
The arts industry is about six times larger than the fishing industry, but without change I fear that the future of the arts in this country, especially for those less well off, will be in jeopardy. For even the chance of our rich cultural legacy to be passed on to future generations, irrespective of wealth, it is imperative that these venues stay open.
Jessica Toomey, director of Frog and Bucket comedy club, Manchester
This is the first time there’s been a pot of Arts Council funding available for comedy to apply for. On the one hand, it’s great we have finally been able to apply for funding, but it’s just bittersweet we didn’t get it.
It’s devastating, actually. After a fantastic 26 years there is now very little light at the end of the tunnel. A legendary comedy club that is pivotal to the history of English humour [Peter Kay, Caroline Aherne, Steve Coogan and more all performed there] is now under threat for the sake of £60,000, when other venues without the legacy or cultural contribution can be awarded £1m.
If we had had the funding, we could have taken whatever the next six months threw at us – whether we had to close for a third time. It would have allowed us to go digital, move all our shows online and protect ourselves from future closures. So I’ve just got to take it month by month – if the curfew is lifted, I could put on late-night shows, which offsets our losses.
I did originally support a system for the arts similar to the eat out to help out scheme. I’m not so sure now, because when the initial talk of lockdown started everyone was blaming the restaurants. I don’t really want the arts to be in a position where everyone is encouraged to go, only for us to get blamed for a potential surge.
Joe Heap, director of Towersey folk festival, Buckingham
Towersey festival is 56 years old. It was started by my granddad, has always been family-run and has always been a commercially successful event. We’ve never had to borrow money, or ask the Arts Council or government for support. It sustains itself, and it contributes around £250,000 back into the local been spread much more fairly.
Dani Hadley, general manager of Velvet Music Rooms & Sugar Suite Club, Birmingham
This was our first bite of the cherry. So to be unsuccessful is going to create great uncertainty for our business. We were hopeful, and I believe we submitted a very good application. We are not bitter or resentful for the successful applicants, but we are disappointed.
Velvet Music Rooms is independent. We don’t have the financial support of a chain; I don’t have a dedicated team of fundraisers or bid writers. I know that we’re culturally significant, and we ticked all of the criteria. economy every year; it employs more I do feel that we were disadvantaged than 300 freelancers annually. from the outset, perhaps because we
We recognised we were going to haven’t used this approach before, or struggle [with the pandemic]. We our name isn’t familiar in the world of fought tooth and nail to get through public funding. this year, which we’ve had to cancel, obWe’re based on Broad Street, or as viously, and we’ve been incredibly creawe call it, the Golden Mile – it certainly tive with putting on online events by wasn’t golden in terms of funding. In crowdfunding. Somehow we managed the south of the UK, venues received to scrape through this year financially over 60% of all funding allocated. and keep the spirit of the festival alive. We put on in excess of 180 live
We’re delighted to see that the performances a year, catering to an government announced some support average of 5,000 audience members a for the cultural sector. We didn’t ask week. Those performances cannot confor a huge amount of money: £100,000, tinue. Unless we get some more governand every single similar event in our ment support, the future doesn’t look sector has been funded apart from us. very bright for us.
We are absolutely mystified and gobsJoe Haycocks, owner of RSH macked. Unfortunately there is no right Audio, a London-based sound comto appeal, pany and no information as to why we weren’t successful. We will have to rely on borrowing,
It makes me feel sick, because I’m leaving us with more debt when we the custodian of this historic event. I have no clarity on when we can resume feel enormous responsibility and take business. Decisions taken to make staff pride in the fact that we’ve run it so redundant are now definite, removing successfully for so long, and to not be diversity and younger members from funded alongside all of our competitors our team. Those staff that do remain is just a kick in the teeth. We’re trying to are now on notice, and on significant regroup and think how can we survive. cuts to their hours and incomes. All
My axe to grind is not with those these things have caused immense who did get funding, it’s with our stress and pressure. government. The money is there to I am of course really happy to support the cultural sector: it’s a huge see some amazing organisations repart of the economy of this country, ceiving funding, those that genuinely and we should all be supported. Don’t take risks to bring unique events and let anyone tell you the money isn’t projects to life. I am however deeply there. I feel like this process could have unhappy and angry about peers in the been done in a much fairer way that supply chain receiving large amounts didn’t pit all of these cultural organiof funding – I struggle to believe they sations against each other. We are now couldn’t have borrowed like we are in this horrible situation where some now forced to. Why not spread money have been successful and some haven’t, between more businesses? And what and actually the money could have measures were Arts Council England using to judge which similar businesses received funding?
The government have recently announced an extension of the furlough scheme for businesses that cannot open in local lockdown areas. I think these measures should be extended to businesses servicing events and nightlife, which also cannot operate at the moment due to the government restrictions, but which remain viable in the longer term.
Of course, the real priority is to push for more funding; the imbalance needs to be addressed. In the meantime I need to focus on my mental health, because this rejection has made things feel even more difficult.
Simon Lowe, director of The Panto Bus, Banbury
We have spent the last seven years offering touring pantomimes and production shows to various venues including theatres, schools, clubs, hotels, hospitals, care centres, military bases and communities all over the UK and abroad.
Many of our audience members are from underprivileged communities, many of whom, without our visits, would not have access to the arts and live theatre. Some simply cannot afford to take their families and communities to see a show, or engage in what many take for granted.
We secured a bounce-back loan in the hope it would help us through the pandemic, and keep going until we secured funding from the Arts Council. It was such a confusing process to apply [for Arts Council England fund
ing]. There’s no way of ascertaining exactly what they want – you had to sort of stick a finger in the air and hope you were catching the wind in the right direction. We certainly couldn’t afford to pay someone professionally to come and do it for us – we don’t have that kind of money lying around.
Rupert Morrison, director of Sea Change festival, Totnes
Since we were unsuccessful in funding, we have had to work out how to pay the last of our bills and debts for the aborted 2020 festival. We owe advert revenue – among other production debts – to independent outlets whose work and support we value a great deal, and we are committed to finding a way to honour those invoices. The fund was supposed to be for people at immediate risk. Five months after we had to postpone our festival, we remain very much still at risk and really without any support outside our network of friends.
The lack of understanding and value placed on arts is shocking and depressing. We had hoped that by working with bodies like Arts Council
England they would be able to advise and inform us. It is undoubtedly an unenviable role in deciding that sort of financial allocation, but it feels like there is a lack of clarity in how these decisions have been made, and how some of the grants are going to benefit emerging arts, the most at-risk part of the arts industry.
On announcement [of the successful candidates], there was a whitewashing of agreed PR text and imagery to champion the Department for [Digital,] Culture, Media and Sport – there has been not a word about those who were “unsuccessful”. If they want to shine in the glory of giving out money, they need to own the responsibility of assisting everyone who applied. We have not received one word of advice or support in 2020 from any structure or body that should be supporting us. I can only imagine that such understanding will be shown when we stop paying the bills we can’t afford to pay.
We believe in the festival, whereas the government seems not to. We have always invested in our belief that arts remain vital, but for now, we feel totally abandoned.
My axe to grind is with the government. Don't let anyone tell you the money isn't there
Joe Heap