A DIALOGUE about Contemporary Theatre in the regions - outside big cities Katherina Radeva, 26 January 2014 People attended, including Rebecca Atkinson-Lord, Gemma Paintin, Tom Spencer, Brian Lobel, Irene Paganelli, Abby Galvin, Sally E. Dean, Dan Baker, Ira Brand, Jo Mackie, Sheridan Humphreys, Alister Lownie, Kate O'Connor, Clara Giraud, Owen Calvert-Lyons, Amy Letman, Faith Dodkins, Jack Lane, Loren O'Dair, Lyn Gardner, Jasmine Woodcock-Stewart – facilitated by Katherina Radeva A SUMMARY We had a dialogue about better conversations between venues and artists and their audiences. SOME NOTES There was discussion of inter-regional collaborations, including touring into and out from London Better networks for artists based in cities and how they approach regional networks National rural touring network: ridiculously hard to get into, and hard for its volunteer programmers to understand (and get to see) your work Big uncertainty about touring in regions: who to talk to - are there audiences? Do artists live there? Audiences travel to the cities and big theatres as well as village halls - don't make an assumption Artists are programmers in some less developed rural areas - and these can be easy to approach for other artists, who believe in their ability to reach audiences through this, rather than venue-based programming Exchange - of artists' networks, programming each other, => possibly more honestly reaching each other's audiences; these can give really personal long-lasting relationships; can be very flexible, well-organised events Touring to regional venues: who gets the audience? Venues sometimes too reliant on the company (unknown in their area) “bringing” their own audience; big gap between venues believing they have marketing departments who work hard and companies who arrive to find their flyer box has never been opened – important to have the conversations with marketing and remember they haven't seen your show, didn't program it and don't necessarily understand why it's in the program. Conversation suggested 70-80% of responsibility for getting audience lies with venue. Artists: know your audience! Provide information to marketing departments – make clear what the target audiences are (and also as show gets audiences, find out who they are and what attracted them). Extra time to do interviews, marketing conversations, and workshops to build interest – needs to be paid for —-=====>>>>> all leads to journey to build audience for venue, artist, artform – can take time! Desire for sustainable relationships with strong dialogue on both sides (venue/artist) – which requires sensible fees Ask “is there anything else I can do?” Building relationships can be starting small - from scratch showing can come plenty of interest from various venues Think how you make your one night at a venue feel like an event - with the excitement around it! Shared responsibility - when it doesn't work, talk about it and find out what can be learned from both sides. If it's program timing, or venue still building experience and audience for an artform, or that the artist wants to stick to bigger cities, that's fine: just understanding each other is really vital Interest in whether artists should be able to get hold of audience contact details – and what kind of permission needs to be obtained for this. Discussion around getting audience profile info from venues – which there's no problem sharing – but what are artists going to do with it? The meeting was a great conversation and a general feeling of the idea of talking to each other better and not being afraid to raise any issues. Real sense of desire from all parts to make it work. Tags: regions, contemporary, Theatre, Touring, Regions, rural, touring, THEATRE, theatre