Introduction to Rural Touring

[Music] hello everybody thank you so much for coming in this evening to this extracurricular introduction to rural touring and we're joined this evening by Steffi Natasha and Sophia and we'll do I'll do you um some brief introductions to them and just let you know how the session is going to run so rural touring is an important part of the touring ecology in the UK and a fasting fantastic way to reach audiences in this session we will cover how rural touring schemes work and program the logistics of what it means to make work rural touring ready and why creating work for rural community and Library spaces can be so rewarding Steffy Jessup from the national rural touring Forum will give an insight into how the national network of rural touring schemes work advice on how to ensure your work is rural tour ready and insights on how to approach programmers Natasha glue the manager of on tour the rural touring scheme for North Yorkshire based out of rural Arts will speak about their scheme how their scheme operates what they look for on when they're programming and other ways to work with artists and last but not least and we're also joined by experienced rural touring artist Sophia Hatfield who will share her knowledge on what it takes to roll a tour and why she does it um so each of those speakers is going to speak from about 20 minutes at the most we're going to take a five minute break at about 6 50 and then we'll end with a 15-minute q a and like I say feel free to use the chat function if you want to be able to see those questions as you go um is that all right with everybody shall we kick off we'd like to welcome first up um we'd like to welcome Steffy hi everyone um I'm Steffy so I am the communications manager for the RTF which is the national rural touring forum um up until yesterday I was testing positive for covid so my voice is a little croakier than usual and it might just mean that I have to stop throughout my presentation take a drink or mute and cough a little bit but bear with me I'm sure we can power through um so just before I get into sort of the nuts and bolts of how generally rural touring works and just to give you a little overview of who the nrtf are so we are essentially the sector support Organization for everyone involved in rural touring and so that is the artist volunteer promoters venues Arts organizations and Rural touring schemes we work with everyone and for everyone we have a website which is ruraltouring.org and which you can become a member of I have left free artist membership up until tomorrow which we have left for over the covered period but now we're in a new Financial yeah we are putting back in and you do not have to be a member of the nrtf in order to rural tour but if you do you get access to our weekly rural touring Roundup which has all the latest rural touring opportunities in it you get a member profile and access to all of our resources on the website and we do things like intervention projects that support everyone in the sector we have a national yearly conference and we do regular calls where we have all of the artists involved in rural touring come together on a zoom call for us to hear about the things that are affecting artists at that point or how we might Advocate better for them and we do a lot of work around advocacy so with defra and the Arts Council and that kind of thing that's who we are um I'm now going to get into the nuts and bolts of how Royal touring works because I know when it comes to artists that's their number one question so I'm going to show down my screen and we have just a short video and with Ian McMillan who if you thought I had a northern accent wait until you hear his in this video and it'll just give you a very quick introduction to rural touring and the Ecology of the sector imagine a map of the country imagine the air roads that become B roads that lead to a village on a Crossroads and there are the apex of the crossroads at the heart of the village is the Village Hall just look at these posters rural touring is a series of schemes supported by the national rural touring Forum that takes high quality art and performance to places that are often seen as being far from the center of things although as we know these Villages are the center of so many things rural touring homes its doors to all kinds of performance for all ages in these small venues each one unique each one kept in Tip-Top condition by committees and volunteers you'll see theater music comedy dance and the kind of shows you'd have to travel miles to see unless you're here of course like rural touring is got a rural touring schemes from Horizon to Horizon across the land think of them as a festival That Never Ends an off off off West End Extravaganza a reminder that the local experience is simply a different way in to the universal experience there are thousands of Village halls and I'd like them all to be part of the scheme and there are hundreds of Performing groups and I'd like them all to be part of the scheme if you want to join this unique circuit contact the National rural touring Forum it could be a marriage made in a series of magical spaces each one unique each one Unforgettable these events are unmissable and they're good value for money here you've got community really gathered together in their Village Hall the atmosphere is always great and people are always really up for it for us it keeps the work alive like so every space we go to we're working with new people I don't know if you can see but it's beautiful here are you coming tonight National rural touring Forum www dot ruraltouring.org welcome to rural touring [Applause] okay so hopefully that's inspired you slightly easy you've seen a whole variety of the types of spaces that we work in and my presentation now is going to kind of um break down some of that language some of those names some of the phrases and words you will hear thrown around for all touring um and just exactly what that means especially for you as an artist so a rural touring scheme is a bit like your traditional Arts venue except instead of programming across several theaters or Studio spaces in one building they work with a series of Community Driven venues across a geographical location usually they will cover a county or two and the venues that they work with while that video talks a lot about Village halls and they really vary in shape size what their normal function is so we work with uh libraries pubs uh schools community centers traditional Village Halls uh we've been in the house of work inside people's houses before so when you think of rural touring it's not always um just a village hall it's often so much more than that and so the majority of schemes are either a national portfolio organization or the Scottish equivalent or night out Wales which is run as part of the world shorts Council and there are around 30 schemes covering the majority of the rural areas in the UK like building-based Arts venues schemes have certain programming parameters they tend to run their program in Seasons maybe spring and Autumn winter for indoor work and some schemes also take on a summer season programming outdoor work and since covered we have seen a lot more schemes start to host regular outdoor works part these seasons and begin to experiment with how they can add that into their regular programming they can only program a certain amount of shows and artists every season and this will depend on the size of the scheme the venues they work with and of course their budgets each scheme works really hard to ensure that their venues and communities have access to a really varied range of high quality art this means that within their season they will be programming theater music and family and children work spoken word puppetry Focus outdoor work you get the idea we try to cover as much as we can within our budget at some parameters as possible because our old communities are full of people with taste and interest just as varied as their Urban Neighbors so we put together a menu of work for our Royal venues and promoters to choose from that reflects that and so this will come to one of the first words that we throw around so much in rural touring and that is the menu so the menu is a crucial part of rural touring and it is where we begin to differ from our building-based counterparts when programming a scheme will put together a menu of artists for their role venues and promoters to choose from if you're selected for the menu this usually means that a scheme programmer has spoken to you about your work and has agreed some penciled in dates with you usually two or three dates uh a Thursday Friday Saturday in which they'll say we want you to come to Lancashire on those dates once a scheme has penciled in dates with you they will work tirelessly to confirm these dates so it's important not to double book them or if you are offering the same dates to several venues or schemes been really transparent about that from the beginning and keeping everyone in the loop within this conversation they'll have also checked all the other vital details they need from you such as what the show cost is what tech is involved is their wrap around activity how long is the getting is this the final copy for your show do you have a trailer which image image is best to use to sell your show then they put together all this information together into the menu which contains all the information any perspective venue that they work with might need in order to book your show this menu is then sent out to all of venues and promoters that the scheme works with and the promoters and the venues choose which show best fits for them I am just going to take a quick pause to have a drink of water no problem at all Stephy don't worry have that thing where if I start thinking don't cough that's when I'll start to cough so okay so what or who is a promoter and so these are the people that are receiving this menu um and it's um the promoter is the word that we throw around a lot in rural touring and it might have a slightly different meaning to the one you're chose you're used to so promoter is a person or a group of people based in a rural area that take responsibility for choosing and then organizing promoting and hosting which professional performance is coming to their venue they might be the Village Hall committee as a whole they might be a librarian they might be the pub landlord um they might just be one particularly passionate volunteer in a village that works with a range of different spaces in that Village ultimately they are the person that picks the show off the menu and that best fits their venue and Their audience when doing this they will take into account all sorts of things technically is the venue big enough to host the show is the venue free on the date that the artists are available so our venues are very highly in demand and so this is a really important part of the jigsaw and what did they program last season some promoters like to constantly switch it up other promoters have the one art form that they're really passionate about and they stick to that and ultimately do they feel confident in selling that show to Their audience who is normally their neighbors the promoter not only chooses the show but then sells tickets puts up the posters and liaises with the artist to organize the get-in they are also often the person running the bar on the night and the one that calls the raffle they are the programmer the audience development officer the box office in front of house staff they basically um the entire everyone you would find in an Arts venue it wrapped up into one person they know the majority of Their audience by name once they've received the menu and decided which show is the best fit for them they send that back to the scheme they'll usually submit two or three options scheme will then look at everyone's submissions and put together the jigsaw that is their program they'll double check that shows and venues fit together and they'll make sure that all those penciled in dates are filled and they'll make sure things like if you go into one Village on the Friday you're not going to the neighbors on the Saturday because you might be splitting audiences and that's when they will then come back to you to confirm those dates with you contract you and put you in touch with the venues that you're touring to from there you'll work with the venue and promoter to organize your show but also with the scheme and everyone works together to promote a market the promoters will order leaflets and posters from you and they'll sell those tickets the schemes will put together a season brochure and website listings so that is kind of the ins and outs of generally speaking how each scheme works obviously as I've said up top every scheme is different so they all have their own ways of how they do that um what you're probably wondering is that's all right but what do they program what do I need to do so as I said before a royal tone scheme program will be as varied as an Arts venue it's not just about uh Royal issues for Rural communities thank you so much okay Natasha are you okay to to pick up from there for us I am yes uh it's fabulous I am going to load up my screen share which is now going to confuse everyone so um yes so I work over at rural Arts um which is in first North Yorkshire um although I actually live in Pudsey West Yorkshire so uh I have a bit of a commute um I also have have been in the role for about six months as programmer so not a huge amount of time um and I also double up and have an artist's hat as well so sometimes that can be really useful because it means I can talk to artists a bit more um from their perspective and be like this is the stuff you need to know this is how it works um and also that can inform how I want to program a little bit as well so um this is taken from another uh another overview we've done before um I won't go too much into the novel touring uh the the national rural touring Forum uh schemes because I feel like that is something stephy's probably going to cover so I'll just focus on who we are so we're up in uh first and Rural Arts is a charity um and and first and foremost we're actually a big Arts Center um and we have lots of art studios and we have Kiln and we always we're absolutely full of community groups that are always in their doing Visual Arts things uh we also have the courthouse which is a what it says it is on the tin it's an Old Courthouse room it holds about 45 to 60 people um it's a lovely beautiful space lovely tall ceilings and we're very lucky to have a lighting rig even though it's incredibly basic a lighting rig uh and a projector um and we do host events there as well um so first is obviously a rural rural Town um doesn't have a huge um amount of people so we don't host loads and loads of events um and I think our town is is also recovering a little bit from pandemic as many of many venues are so um we are only hosting events probably once a month at the moment um until everybody feels a bit more confident with that so as Steffy was saying there are 30 different schemes nationwide at least and our scheme is called on tour so um ours is very different to all the rest of them as Steffy was saying so everything I say is very much from our perspective um so uh stephy's already talked about what a promoter is I think the easiest way to think about it is that they're a volunteer who runs their venue that's probably the best easiest digestible chunk and she's also talked about what is the menu um and we've obviously talked a lot about that so I won't go into that again um but we should just about to get on to what sort of work do we program so it um on on tour which is obviously our program up in North Yorkshire we like to program all sorts of genres but the popular ones are music which um can be folk music acoustic music swing um it says on here however we are interested in most forms of music that have low technical requirements so that's because our village Halls so we have about a hundred promoters or venues um or volunteers um who are on our Steam and they look through our menu to select our work and I would say probably 70 of those venues don't have a rig don't have a PA or a projector um and they vary in size from sort of 40 seats 40 people to sit down to um Skipton Town Hall which is huge like 250 300 but the majority of them I would say are on the smaller side um so yes music is something we program it's also very very popular um and I think uh the Bookers as well like it because it's um sometimes it's an easier sell for them um and all of this odd language do do ask questions if I say anything that sounds a bit jargony um the other thing they love to book is a panto now not every scheme books are panto um but we do uh and we've used a couple of different companies um but the very traditional panto is what they love um so we've had tailgate theater in before and before that pocket pan too so um I love a panto um we also program a lot of dance so um there are a couple of reasons we program a lot of contemporary dance partly because as it says on the slide we've been working with the rural touring dance initiative I hope I got those those uh those letters right um which was a national initiative to be able to make sure that contemporary dance could reach rural touring areas and remote Villages and take work from London out to the country and that was a wonderful scheme because it meant that dance is one of the most expensive art forms to create and produce and tour and obviously our village hall with a budget of 300 pounds was never going to afford it so it meant that it really was much more accessible much more affordable and really was getting danced to the places that may never have had it um the other thing we like to program is comedy again a nice accessible art form um we're obviously it can cross genres um and it's a wonderful way of um bringing in lots of different cultures as well and it's very popular um and obviously they're like contemporary theater as well I think there's been much more of a push for that in more recent years probably sort of newer new people like me coming in programmers who are seeing more contemporary things from thinking this has got the same um exciting quality and accessibility that our promoters are going to like um and you can see one of Bradford producing hub's ones there which uh I I went and saw and uh managed to get a few dates for on our scheme last season um classic theater what we call um uh so this includes like Shakespeare classic plays um ones these are really really popular um and these are really popular for adult audiences I would say as well um so I've um to be honest I've never seen quite so much traditional classic theater until I'd started working at rural touring so if that's what you make it's a big plus um and slowly we're starting to program more interactive and multimedia performances again that you could say they're more contemporary um so for example we recently had the dark room up at first um which is based on sort of a projector and he was wearing like a games console and it's all connected through um we've also had a show about fax machines um which sounds low-tech but it was actually incredibly complicated and uh um but I think it depends on the venue like so first because I said we do have a basic rogue and a basic projector so we were in a position to be able to host interactive multimedia shows I'm not sure the rest of our venues would be up for that at the moment but it's um it's something I'm I think a lot of programmers are Keen to try and get more experimental work out there and push those boundaries as well um so the other thing of course is children's and Family Theater another really popular area um and it's probably also worth think um mentioning that every time we do a menu um so EV which covers a season so I've just done a menu for Autumn and spring there's always one of every genre in there um because we have to make sure that we are programming for all types of audiences um so there will always be our children's uh dance a music uh classic theater contemporary theater and sometimes we double up um one of the key things for um because rural rural arts and on tour is funded by Arts Council as most are is the Arts Council like us to put the uh choice of what is programmed to the um to the pro to the promoters sorry too many P words to the promoters so we like to put in quite a few options so I've put in two or three contemporary theater choices into the menu um because I've sort of even gone to see them or recognize that they're good quality etc etc but then it is down to the promoter the volunteer in that Village Hall to make the final choice and that can sometimes be quite harsh because actually you might end up going to a really good Theater Company I'm really sorry but you weren't selected this time and that's nothing to do with the quality of their work it's just sometimes if we're giving those options out it just sometimes doesn't go that way um and finally circus um again not all schemes will take this work but um we've sort of trying to get it a bit more out there it's a you know it's a wonderfully accessible art form I think and can go in multiple spaces and we've actually just programmed our first ever piece of aerial um so well I say program we've put it in the menu and I'm really hopeful for it fingers crossed it's got a rig of multiple sizes which I think helps because that's probably one of the limitations of circus is things like height floor um and set up take down and all of that stuff that can really impact how a promoter or a volunteer essentially goes all that that sounds like it it could damage our floor or it won't fit or you know am I going to have to do any heavy lifting all these things that we try as the programmers to kind of uh kind of smooth that transition from the artist going into the building and coming out just noticed baby on camera so I'm not probably not very sueful singing voice um so uh our next slide is going to venue locations so our specifically in um in on tour we obviously have the we we go through North Yorkshire but actually on tour and a lot of the other schemes have very strange boundaries so you'd think that North Yorkshire would just be anything with that postcode but actually we go up all the way up to the teas Valley and we've actually even got a few venues that we cover in West Yorkshire I went to one that was closer to pontefract than it was to First and um this is the other side of York you have a week so so yeah we have got a bit of a strange boundary system um so what I would advise to any artist who's thinking about um touring is just make sure you contact as many of the different schemes as possible because you don't know who covers what area a lot of the time and sometimes we don't even know so I would spread your applications wide um just so that you kind of cover the areas that you want to cover in the norm so um on our slide we have got some examples of the venues that you might go to and some of the distances so because North Yorkshire is huge as I'm sure you all know um but what you need to think about when it comes to touring and Steffy was saying if you're booked for two or three days is actually you might be booked in North Yorkshire um at one of our venues but the next day you might be booked at somewhere as we can see here if you're booked in uh hanmanby Village at Hanuman Village Hall to ingleborough you're going to be traveling 124 miles so you might think oh I'm only touring in North Yorkshire it'll be nice and easy the reality is yeah it can't it can be quite a big traveling between them now when we are working out your tour if we do if you do are very lucky to get a couple of days in a row which is what we would hope for we do try very uh and make it a much an easy tour route we wouldn't make you kind of zigzag across the county where possible um but yes uh it is just worth keeping in mind that the venues can be quite far apart and also we've got on here some examples of uh how different the venues are so we've got the smallest venue in Wellborn Village Hall um and the largest is mashem um massum I always say massim Town Hall the largest capacity is Skip Doma 250 and oldswood all's World Kirk villators only got 40 and then obviously tallest ceilings control to ceiling useful information for us to remember when we're putting artists in places I think it's really important as well as an artist to know that just because our venues vary massively that doesn't mean and if your work wouldn't work for one or two of them that doesn't mean we won't consider you and it also doesn't mean that you should come you should completely change your show to fit those venues because that's one thing I'm always advising artists that come to me in and they're sort of saying oh you know well we're making this show and we're thinking about you know it oh but the it needs to be in somewhere tall and I'm just like well then that's that's what you need you know and we and it's our job as the programmers to try and make sure that that's communicated so um I would always advise keeping these things in mind is useful in the kind of starting making of your project but if you've already finished your project don't you know don't worry about spending an arm and a leg just just be honest and say what you need um we've got some fun slides about other rad and random trivia I think my colleague who helped me make this was a big fan of random trivia so we have two venues in National in two of the national parks um there are three Daltons in North Yorkshire at the tease Valley we only have venues in one of them gosh I mean this trivia is pretty pretty dry so let's move on to how do I apply for Rural touring um this is obviously what you all want to know as artists so majority of our auditoring schemes will have a form on their website or they will advertise an email address to contact the programmers directly as for example it's just he's on the way is there programming at ruralarts.org the best thing to do is to send a tour pack and to make sure that all that information all the information you have about your show is in that tour pack um you can also invite us to come see your work um but a lot of us work part-time so please don't be offended if we are not available um and I would say as much as you can include video um because we we will want to see the work as much as possible um or um and images uh sort of re-transferring those sorts of things is really useful um we do get a lot of emails a lot a lot of emails and that doesn't mean you shouldn't send your your work across but I would always say as well is make sure you've really thought about that email before you send it there's no point just sending a hello um you know a bit awkward uh here's just the name of my show because we we're reading them quite fast and you want it to come off the page and hit us in the face with I've thought about this email I've thought about the content here is my show and here's what I'm talking about now obviously you might not be at that stage in your career yet and that's absolutely fine too is we do have a lot of time at we're relaxed and some of the other schemes have put things in place to support artists so if you do want to send a more kind of I would like some further advice then those emails are definitely welcome but I probably wouldn't send them to the programming email address I would probably try and send them to a more generic email address um like you're more than happy to contact me directly or just go through the rural Arts website um it's just when you look when we're looking through that programming email box that's where we're looking for the tour packs so um uh yes so that's how I would suggest applying but there are 30 schemes so I would definitely get onto the northern rural touring Forum because as Steffy said the memberships are free until tomorrow um and also yeah go through all of that and make a big old spreadsheet in contact so how do we select work so this is always a difficult question to answer but we've we've tried our best here so we select work primarily based on quality that's one of the big things um we are funded by Arts Council so Arts Council sort of dictate a lot of the kind of the boundaries of which we will select work as well which I think is important because they're not that keeps everybody into it sort of measurable place um we are interested in shows with small casts um or small cash requirements such as one had a place um so this comes down to costs for us in on tour our specific scheme I wouldn't say we have huge budgets so any any show with a smaller cast between one and three people generally doesn't cost as much to tour as a very large panto or a 10-piece ballet or a brass band you know sort of number of people generally means that the costs are less so that is always helpful for us um but we don't just program one or three person shows um due to the nature of our venues we're looking for shows which either have low Tech requirements or self-contained so as I've mentioned 70 of our venues don't have Tech um or reliable Tech or Tech from this Century so and a lot of them don't have a tech person on site either I'd say higher than 70 don't have anybody there who will do your tech for you so the best thing to do is to bring all of your own kit that you know how to program and work that you can take into a venue and set up and manage and then all you need to worry about is have making sure it's Pat tested um and that it's you've got access to a 30-man plug that's the best way to do it again you don't have to as I've said we have had shows that work with projectors and the projectors were in-house um but that is always helpful so budgets we do have a finite amount of money and we have to balance that very carefully um so that's always just worth something keeping in mind um we only we are only 50 of the selection panel so this is a really important thing so when you're contacting me or Steffy or whoever um we're the we kind of call it like the first hurdle I guess is to get into the menu as I've mentioned you might get into the menu but then the promoters of the fight are the ones that choose you and if they if they don't think you're right for Their audience or for whatever reason they don't choose you sadly that's sadly that does happen sometimes uh some of our venues don't like booking work that's explicit uh sort of says what it is on the tin uh like bad language is something that comes up a lot and we have to make sure we sort of mention that in our menus always talking about your work um but that doesn't stop us programming work with bad language you'll just have to say whether it does or not just so that they're not shocked um we are interested in work which is suitable for a wide variety of Ages and Families and we like work which our experience that's not worded very well but um as we find these are often selected by promoters what we mean by that is that it's not just a show and I think like if I have my artist sat on I find this very frustrating because what we're saying on Rural touring is you've worked all you've worked really hard to make a theater show and put loads of time and effort into it but could you just do another thing as well um so it's just worth thinking about it when you're in the making process how can I make this a little bit more of an experience so we've had shows that come in and they will work with the local Village um the local Village restaurants and provide food we've had people we've had companies that come in and help run a raffle we've had people come in and they run a workshop um essentially we've had people who do like live cooking during the shows it doesn't have to always be about food but food is a big thing they love food um but essentially if you can think about your show and what the extra thing might be so we had a dance piece and at the end they had a Kaylee um and I feel like the majority of people booked that show because there was a Kaylee at the end but that does sound pretty exciting so it's just worth thinking what would be the extra offer what is your to be consumerist sounding your unique selling point um you know and it's it's sort of worth thinking around your subject area and how we can you know make you the most sellable most appealing as possible um yes and for us that we're all rural arts inclusivity and diversity is super important um and we make sure that we've got that in our menu as much as possible um yeah it's something that we we go through and we're very uh Max our CEO sits us down and we look at all the percentages of what we're who we're representing so um it's something yeah we're super Keen to improve that even more to be honest um so if you're making work that is diverse please do get in touch um and that is the end of my presentation I realize that I probably spoke quite fast um and if there was captioning on it would have been a garbled mess ing you know and it wasn't too bad it did occasionally as it always does get a bit confused but um if you remind us stuffing your screen chat I can fantastic thank you so much that's been such a useful Insight Steffy don't worry that you didn't quite make it all the way through is there anything you wanted to add before we take a break uh yeah I think um I won't bring up my presentation again because it does reiterate a lot of what Tasha said but I think there's a couple of things that I would pick up from in terms of the variety of schemes and how they program so um that Tech thing um I also work for spot on Lancashire which is lancashire's rural and Community touring Network um we say everything you need to run your show must be in the van with you and we also emphasize the need for the van because um there are points in Lancashire that if you were to go from one Village to another it would take you two days on public transport and so you have to be fully technically self-sufficient and it is a numbers game with rural touring across the country the more technically self-sufficient you are the better your numbers are and the better that we have the chance of finding a venue that can take your work and that thing about sometimes promoters being a little afraid of explicit work and that's about been as upfront as possible right from the beginning about what your show is about and so a while ago I think Royal Turing had a reputation for wanting to provide good time shows and entertaining shows and it's not that as such but our communities like to come together for a good night out and what I always Define a good night out is that you've brought the community together for a reason now that might be to have a conversation that that Community has never had because your piece of theater is issue based or it might be that you've opened up um an art form that they've never seen before but there has to be something that we can let the promoter know exactly what it is that they're get getting um and we do a lot of sort of matchmaking in rural touring in terms of kind of guessing up front which promoters are going to go for which shows and knowing whose arms we can twist as well and to fill dates for you and so just been really upfront and we have asked people to count how many swear words are in their shows and that's because it comes back down to the fact that the promoter is the person selling the tickets um and you're also often going into a venue that's where baby bounce and rhyme is or yoga's class and it's a place where people feel very safe and so if we shock them with explicit material that they weren't expecting we did that in their house effectively and they're going to complain to the promoter when they see them trying to buy milk the next day that's not going to a complaints department in a theater so that is one thing that I would pick up on and then the other thing is um every scheme takes submissions for programming differently and I know that can sound very annoying and it's very time consuming and it puts a lot of work on you but it is just the same as how every Arts venue takes programming submissions in different forms so some schemes have very specific online forms they need you to fill out they will not take anything by email and that's because of the way that they then use that information to go out to all of their promoters so for example I know that um neat um up in Scotland they have a very specific form that pulls together that database and the promoters also have a very specific computer program they have to log into um other schemes are much more open to taking um a tour pack at any time and some schemes have very specific call outs of when they take work so doing your homework in that instance and making sure that you're applying in the right way at the right time is really important and my other big piece of advice would be while we all have different methods we're all looking for the same thing so it's the tour pack having that all in one place having really high quality marketing materials right from the minute that you're submitting to a programmer is really important and I know that we as programmers know that sometimes those marketing materials are a total work of fiction because you haven't finished making the show yet but it just needs to be something that we can see what you're going for so that we can then sell that on to promoters um so I guess that's and then the other thing that I get asked a lot is do schemes all programmed together if I apply to one do I get a halter across the whole country unfortunately not that's just won't work with people's timelines different budgets and all of that kind of thing schemes do work very closely together and we often share programming for special projects um we share ideas with one another if people are looking for something or they find something and they really think it should go further and we take recommendations so often if you've gone to one or two schemes in Autumn other schemes might come to you for spring so you do get quite a long length of tour that you can make a show viable for um but generally you have to be in charge of that tour booking and I think that's it thank you so much for bearing with me through my uh my cough earlier I can feel my voice going so I'm gonna be quiet and I know Sophia's got some great insights to share with you as well fantastic thank you so much I do promise everybody a five minute break so let's do that let's be able to go and quickly stretch our legs please don't leave us um because like we say Sophia absolutely has the the gold from the uh artists touring perspective and and what it's like actually doing it so um we'll come back it's now 53 so we will come back in five minutes time which gets us to 58 and I'm gonna time you all and we'll start on time is that all right everybody I will see you shortly brilliant we'll kick back off into the final section which is uh over to Sophia um at the end of Sophia's bit we will have time for Q a um and again remember you can pop those questions in the chat or save them up to the end either way um and just to point out that stephie's been putting some useful links and bits of information in the chat as well as we've gone along but for now I will um Spotlight you Sophia and hand over to you thank you um hello everyone so I'm Sophia Hatfield I am a freelance artist um so I'm a self-producing theater maker and I've worked a lot as a sort of jobbing performer on the rural touring circuit as well over the years and um I also run a theater company called stoop theater who have um recently registered as a kick and we've done lots of rural touring um so um I've done lots of stuff on the Royal touring circuit so I've created and taught Children's shows family shows for Rural touring I've done a piece of outdoor work for a rural touring venue and I've done a show for sort of young adults which had live looping and projection in it and again for Rural touring which was a rural touring commission and I'm currently working on a three-handed show called I am no bird about the Bronte sisters which is going to be touring very very soon on some Rubble Towing circuits so um I've done loads of it and and um I just think it's an absolutely fantastic um world to venture into as an artist and I have created some very simple slides um but what I'll do is I'll talk a little bit about each thing that I'm going to talk about and then I'll summarize with a slide because it's nice to be able to talk to everyone and so I wanted to talk a bit about why do rural touring as an artist and what makes it great from the artist's perspective and the first reason I think it's wonderful and um you know we've touched on this already both Steffi and Tasha have talked about it you can take work to audiences all over the country who might never ever otherwise get to see your work so it is a wonderful way to reach people to reach audiences and to take work into the heart of a community and and in addition to that your performer audience relationship when you're working in a rural touring venue is so so different there is no fourth wall you have a really direct relationship with the audience and it's really really difficult to create that in a more formalized Arts venue um another thing that's been a real benefit for me as an artist from working with rural touring is that work that's suitable for Rural touring is also suitable for loads of other venues so my um my reach just spiraled out of control when I started doing rural touring because work that's suitable for Rural touring venues if it can go into a village hall it can probably go into a library if it can go into a library it can probably go into a community-run library that's not owned by a council it can go into a school Primary School High School it can go into a community center so from touring with rural touring organizations I've got relationships with libraries all over the country I've even started touring work with housing associations in my local area who will now fund me as an artist to take a play into an inner City Housing Association and reach communities who do not go to the theater most of my audiences on that tour had never seen a piece of theater before we asked them and they hadn't so it's opened up a whole world for me um another reason I absolutely love it is because as an artist it gives me much more agency and choice about how I tour my work where at all my work when at all my work because I can decide what dates I want to make available so absolutely once I've decided I'm going to tour this two weeks I don't change that because you don't want to mess communities around but just having that choice of being able to go do you know what I'm going to block out these two weeks I'm going to offer these dates and having that agency in Choice doesn't always come to you that often as a freelance artist especially and I've really found that that's made my work life balance a lot better and it's just been a really nice thing to be able to do as a freelancer as a self-producing performer and another thing that is absolutely amazing about the world of rural touring is the support network there is a vast network of support for artists and so I think staffy's already mentioned the regular artist meetups the chats during the pandemic they became an absolute Lifeline for me because it was a place where I could come and find out what was going on because the nrta sort of had a direct line on it because they were going in the big meetings with central government and the Arts Council to find out how long is this going to go on for are we going to get any funding and that support Network's been invaluable there's lots of commissioning opportunities so I've had I've been able to r d work that I would have never otherwise been able to make because of a little pot of funding that was made available by a rural touring organization and so for me it was spot-on did a commission to create work for young adults in libraries and that r d commission turned into a really big show which ended up winning an award and wanted to make that show for ages but actually you know getting hold of funding to r d something properly as an artist is very challenging and Rural touring does try to offer those things to artists and and in a fair way as well so usually it's a very easy application process for those kind of commissions there's loads and loads of support in applying you can ask questions and it's always just very open very friendly and so that's been fantastic and the biggest Plus for me my sort of final point for Rural touring is the challenges of creating for me I'm a theater artist and so the challenges of creating work in a non-theater space that is a little bit small and doesn't have lighting and has technical limitations that is a huge creative opportunity and it's um completely changed the way I think about my work because those limitations the way you find a way around them can open up amazing possibilities and off the back of that I've ended up doing you know I ended up doing telephone theater shows and you know just the and it was because my way of thinking changed when I had to overcome sort of oh well how are we going to do this without lights you know so that's the sort of advantages I'm going to try and share my screen and I've summed up those little bullet points in a shorter way oh keynote that's what I want to share allows you oh hang on so I'm trying to get Zoom to let me share my screen and it's like not letting me so what I might have to do is um share those slides another time yeah it's not letting me do it I do apologize I've got a new Macbook and I don't think I've set it up properly um but I'll move on I will share those slides um after the session so if anyone just wants to see a sum up of what I've gone through um I wanted to talk a bit about the early conversations I have when I'm making a piece of work because I think um one of the things that I think it's really helpful to think of as an artist when you're making work for Rural touring you have to sort of embed some principles quite early to allow you to not have problems to overcome much later and so I always like to talk to rural touring organizations quite early when I have an idea for a show so I'll usually approach a few people who I've sort of worked with before and say I've got this idea what do you think and that's usually a good starting point but once I've formulated the idea and I know what shall I want to make and how I want it to look and what subject matter we're going to explore and I try and sort of pin down a few things extremely early and I think this does sort of loop back to what and Tasha was saying earlier about the information and what Steph was saying the information you need to send to be included in those menus even if the show is not made yet you need to know these things and so I create an information sheet about the project that just lays all of this out really really clearly with a couple of photos of the work if I've r d it or something similar that could be used if I haven't so I put a brief synopsis of the showing kind of like what I imagine the marketing copy is going to look like eventually and I work out a cost per show and I work that out very early because it just helps everyone if they know how much it's going to cost and it also helps me budget for the project as it emerges to sort of say well look we can't have a cast of eight because we've said we're going to charge this much for it so we can't afford to do that and I decide how many shows I can perform in a day how many shows I'm willing to perform in a day as an artist on my own is not the same as how many shows I expect a cast that I've hired in to perform so I sort of marked that out very early and talk about the show requirements how much floor space I need how high it's going to be how many plug sockets and if I don't know that for sure yet that then becomes part of the design brief so if I've said that I say it early and then whoever else I'm working with all the other creative team get those limitations as well so we know that it can't take up more than this much space the set can't be taller than however many meters and it all has to be doable on one plug socket or no plug sockets depending on where we want to tour it um I decide the size of the cast and I also decide the size of the touring and the production team so whether I'm going to tour it on my own whether we're going to need a stage manager whether we need a production manager or some production support because I think it's just good to know those things early whether you're planning a tour of something that kind of you already have made or whether you're planning to put an art Council application in I'd just like to know that ASAP and as I think and people have already said it just makes it much easier for the venues and it makes it easier for you as well because it means you don't have to backtrack and figure all that stuff out when you're halfway through a rehearsal process and really stressed um so I start these conversations early and then that means that I've got my expected venues my confirm tour venues ready and on an Arts Council application um all ready to send sort of in good time and what I also do as an artist and I found this really helpful is if I know if a rural touring scheme really likes the idea and wants to book it I ask for a letter of support and I attach that at the end of all of my funding applications so that whoever I'm applying to whether it's the Arts Council or someone else they can see that you know it's been thought through and that there there is a potential audience for this work and there is some support for this work from the communities that I want to reach from the places that I want to tour to [Music] um so again there's a whole slide just with a bullet point list of those things which I will share um there are some practical things that I've learned so everything I've learned about rural touring I've either learned through mentoring through schemes particularly through schemes like spot on Lancashire which is sort of my closest one probably and arts out west in Cumbria and um the Cheshire rural drawing Arts as well so I have been mentored a little bit in my early career and a lot by spot on um actually but I've also learned a lot on the job so I just wanted to share some um bullet points and pitfalls that I've learned on the job um so I've already talked about this but height and staging is important and I think I know it's already been said but I do want to talk about ceiling height because um particularly when working with a creative team if you're working collaborating with a director and a designer you need to really make sure that that director and designer understand the needs of rural touring venues and because a lot of people don't a lot of really good people don't so you just need to really be steadfast and clear in those things and height limit is a big one for designers but the height limit isn't just about the height limit in the space you're performing in it also needs to be well is the thing going to get through the door is it going to be able to do a get-in through a windy Corridor can you get it up some stairs because a lot of rural touring venues you know the get-ins aren't that easy so I always include in my design brief it has to you know it has to fit in this side venue it has to be easy to carry a lot of shows I've taught on my own so it has to be easy for me to carry on my own and again I like to make sure that we can do as much of that without any help from the venue as possible so that we know that even if everything goes wrong and some things happened and the promoters had to run off to an emergency as long as the door to that venue is open we can get the show in and get it on without um any disruption um again with the height limiting it's not just about even the venue it's also about the transport so I also include the size of whatever I'm transporting the setting in the design brief so it has to fit in this size of van or quite often it has to fit in my car which is a Citroen C1 and the amount that you can fit into a Citroen C1 when you have a theater designer's brain thinking about it is actually incredible I've toured three full shows in my Citroen C1 I have some pictures of it they're on my website you'll be amazed at what you can fit into the tiniest of cars if you've thought it through but the key is thinking about it at an early early stage so if we've got you know three pieces of set we know that they have to pack into each other so that it's just one thing in the car um again leading on from that occasionally rural touring venues and especially Library venues you might find yourself performing a space that doesn't have a lovely car park with a loading Bay that opens directly into some double doors so on numerous occasions I found myself looking like you know bags of musical equipment across the Tesco car park and along a busy road to get them into the front door of quite a big Library so it's usually fine but it's just worth again thinking about making things as easy for yourself as possible and also having that conversation with the venue and just being like watch your parking like what's your loading like because then if you know it's going to be a nightmare you can ask someone to come and you know I sometimes will be like can I just hire someone for a couple of hours to come in their car locally and just help with that getting and it just makes your life loads easier and so I've spoken about space as well so I always do let's sort of State the minimum amount of space that a show needs to perform in but I just wanted to add to all of that but if you can be flexible that's better so obviously some shows flexibility isn't an option but I think particularly for touring to smaller Community venues and libraries particularly if it's a sort of children's show or something that you know might need to go into a little corner of a library if you can be flexible and go do you know what if we lose a meter either side it's not the end of the world or if the backdrop can be sort of adjustable enhanced so it can drop down by a couple of feet if it needs to it's better and it makes your life easier and it makes um than you volunteers and Librarians and brand new Staff feel much better much more confident because sometimes venues can feel anxious when you turn up with 18 boxes of stuff and why is looping out everywhere so the more flexible the better it's not always possible but where it is possible it's great and other technical requirements that I've learned along the way and Pat testing has been mentioned sort of in passing in the session um any electrical equipment you tore has to be Pat tested budget for that if you if you're budgeting for a tour budget for Pat testing because it's not always possible to get someone to come and do it for free it's not you know if you're not supported by a big Arts venue who has an electrician on site and it can be quite expensive and it's not always as simple as you think so just budget for that make time for it kind of just before you go into rehearsals when you've got all your kit in one place and and similarly thinking about testing and electrical safety you you can have everything Pat tested but you also then need to speak to that technician about the kinds of venues you're going into I usually just work with sound equipment I don't really tour lighting equipment and one of the reasons for that is that there's a lot more thought that goes sound equipment is generally quite low voltage so the chances of you overloading a venue's plug socket are quite low so as long as you've double checked you've got access to more than one plug socket if you're using more than one items of Kit you probably find I would still check but you're probably fine as soon as you get into the world of touring any kind of portable stage lighting you need to know how much power those things use and you need to make sure that they're not going to o

2022-10-26 08:38

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