Future of Theatre Conference

My first time attending this conference, which was held this year at Soho Theatre Walthamstow.   Hundreds of theatre professionals from all over the UK in attendance with a line up of speakers carefully curated by Amanda Parker and The Stage’s Matt Hemley, both of whom also hosted.   Panel topics included immersive theatre, building audiences, sound/audio quality and more, with the likes of Jamie Wilson and Luke Sheppard speaking on their west end hit shows, and a keynote from RSC artistic and executive leadership Daniel Evans, Tamara Harvey and Andrew Leveson.  I moderated the panel on building off-stage revenue streams, being something I have had a lot of success with. My panel were a wealth of knowledge and opinions:  Janthi Mills-Ward from Hull Truck Theatre speaking on their award-winning programmes training medicos in the art of bedside manners, classical musician turned entrepreneur Eddy Hackett speaking on founding The Lost Estate,  and business partners Roseanna Anderson and Josh Ben-Tovim on founding Bristol based Impermanence and sharing a deconsecrated church space with a professional events company to offset running costs.   Three take-aways from my panel were

• Don’t wait for funding to get a good idea off the ground. Just start.
• Keep your activities in line with your values; and know where that line is.
• Not-for-profit companies can add real value to for-profit partnerships; we should not ever see ourselves as the poor cousins in the relationship