In lockdown, when Arts Centres in Stamford, Grantham and Bourne had to suddenly close their doors, it meant that many self-employed artists and performers lost their bookings/work and so were no longer able to generate an income.
The challenge
- How to provide a varied programme of arts events for our audiences whilst our venues were closed?
- How to support and engage with our regular and visiting artists during an ongoing national lockdown?
- If we were to take events online, would the public engage with this…?
- How could we compete with larger public arts providers, who very quickly started to put out online content…would we do this for free and how would we manage this?
- Would customers pay for online content when they could just watch tv or Netflix instead!?
The solution
An online programme of events was put together by South Kesteven District Council (SKDC) Arts Centres by Cultural Services staff who had not been furloughed. We set up our own YouTube Channel and Zoom account. The aim was to provide something for everyone and we certainly achieved that!
By late Spring 2021, we had hired many of our regular artists to provide weekly workshops on our Zoom channel in drawing, dancing, creative writing, craft and ukulele to name a few. Our regular jazz group filmed themselves from their garage to provide monthly Jazz gigs with guest artists and we ourselves engaged a local film maker to film online content…a classical concert, history talks, spoken word, children’s events, local drama and dance groups. We also hired other artists to provide their own content which we then shared as part of our programme; Chantry Dance, Rhubarb Theatre, Polka Dot Panto and Groove Disco among others. As the lockdown continued, we then programmed online content produced by professional art companies throughout the UK which then formed part of our own output, M6 Theatre Company, Half Moon, the RGS, Lyngo Theatre.
We had a policy of ensuring that all artists were fairly paid for the work they provided for us and we were able to do this with the generous financial support of SKDC.
The impact
We had no idea what to expect…this was a very new experience for us all. Would people want to engage with the arts online? But in the end, we didn't have to worry.
Our customers responded overwhelmingly positively to our online programme. The statistics for online engagement were more than we could have hoped for and we found many new customers and increased our followers. Many of these new customers have stayed with us and become regular visitors to our arts centres having found us online. We continue to engage with new artists we discovered and many have made their way into our live programme in 2022.
How is the new approach being sustained?
We continue to engage with many of the artists we had worked with in lockdown, especially those who were new to us. A good example of this would be the classical ensemble London Serenata, who we filmed for online content and then included them in our Classical Season 22-23. The spoken word scene was particularly successful online and we were able to engage globally with a large number of poets. We invited a few of these to perform for Poetry Swaps as part of the online programme and then in July 22, Cathy Carson from Ireland brought her newly commissioned show Becoming Marvellous to Stamford Arts Centre, to much acclaim. Several of the workshops we presented online then made it into the Arts Centres as part of our regular programme of workshops, including Crafting, Sketching with Karen Neale and Ukulele for Beginners.
Lessons learned
We had to think on our feet and look outside of the box for inspiration. We were forced to expand our horizons and this meant that we connected with new artists and companies. We realised that so many local artists depend on us for their income and we have a responsibility to help to support these artists in a time of national crisis.
Contact
Karen Burrows
Arts Programme Officer
South Kesteven District Council
Council Offices, St. Peter's Hill
Grantham, Lincolnshire, NG31 6PZ
Email: [email protected]
www.stamfordartscentre.com