David Brownlee explains why reduced public funding has not shackled theatre, with contributed income, earned income and overall income up from 2009/10.
Many years ago, when I first started working for Arts Council England, a theatre manager quizzed me on what happened to the data it provided in the long and laborious form that venues had to fill in every year as a revenue-funded organisation. Did anybody actually read it? Would it matter if they just made the numbers up?
I confessed I didn’t know and promised to try to find out. It transpired that ACE put all the data into a big file that was shared with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, but then sat on a shelf gathering dust. This seemed a huge waste of time and effort by the managers of arts organisations around England. So I was delighted when, in 2005/06, the arts council started to publish the aggregate data.
I was amazed... Keep reading on The Stage
Many years ago, when I first started working for Arts Council England, a theatre manager quizzed me on what happened to the data it provided in the long and laborious form that venues had to fill in every year as a revenue-funded organisation. Did anybody actually read it? Would it matter if they just made the numbers up?
I confessed I didn’t know and promised to try to find out. It transpired that ACE put all the data into a big file that was shared with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, but then sat on a shelf gathering dust. This seemed a huge waste of time and effort by the managers of arts organisations around England. So I was delighted when, in 2005/06, the arts council started to publish the aggregate data.
I was amazed... Keep reading on The Stage