What Next? meeting Thursday 16 April 2020 on Zoom

Co-Chaired by Marina Norris & Louise Blackwell


NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL

DCMS link – (from last week) to complete a survey
Deadline is May1st. Please complete https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/dcms-sectors-economic-estimates


No update yet from ACE on how the unspent £57m for project grants will be used.
There may be additional money coming into individual funds.

ACE Emergency Relief - 1st round deadline is 12pm today.
Difficult to assess overall numbers yet.
ACE will not publishing names of the organisations or individuals who are awarded.
There has been an overall positive response to the light touch application process. However, it was noted that it isn’t a half a day’s work as was put forward, but more like 3 days.
Payment schedule – according to a tweet - 90% in May and 10% in October in terms of award. All the money has to be spent in 6 months.
ACE makes it clear that these are emergency funds. They are nothing to do with recovery. Recovery funds may well include the £57m.
Organisations are expected to take advantage of all support schemes, as well as drawing down on their own reserves, as possible, but ACE not being prescriptive.

Andrew Comben: National perspective from larger concert halls – Sage Gateshead etc – gloomy outlook. Most people feeling that even if restrictions are lifted,– autumn programming looking unlikely. Commercial promoters are starting to book things for 18-35 demographic for spring and pursuing bookings for the autumn

Laura (ACCA) asked question re contractual terms:
Forced measure clauses are being revised, hard to know if they are testable/ stand up in court.

A-N have announced bursary for individual artists of £500- £1500 https://www.a-n.co.uk/news/a-n-bursaries-time-space-money-open-for-applications/
There is a list on ACE of all available bursaries as relief support for artists and organisations

#Artistssupportpledge – ongoing SM campaign to support visual artists is gathering momentum. Sell four artworks and the money you raise, you buy from another artist.

International perspective:

LA and San Francisco advising no mass gatherings until Autumn 2021
(contrasts with Fatboy slim announcing a 5000 people concert at end of October)

MN -there has been a survey in the US based on people’s behaviour and different demographics. The findings may be related to outdoor work and could offer some insight to programming as we start to lift lockdown. https://www.colleendilen.com/2020/04/08/data-update-which-cultural-entities-will-people-return-to-after-reopening-april-8-2020/


BRIGHTON AND HOVE


https://cultureinourcity.com/ Is a site for all culture happening in B&H, it has now become a support site for artists and organisations.
Compiling resources for virtual events, surgeries and relevant grants available.
Asking all orgs to feature the website link on their website and to advise of any online activity that is happening in the city by emailing arts@brighton-hove.gov.uk

B&H Cultural Summit is postponed. Not much thinking yet around how this will be reimagined in the new landscape though initial conversations mostly what we can do digitally.
Discussion on how we carry on responding, when do we start to set the agenda ourselves, what position do we take, difficult to make a call.

Faith: Smaller organisations are looking for guidance in terms of programming and moving forward. How can we take a collective position? Either local/ national leadership is needed. The pressure is on artists to continue as normal, even though that might be completely wrong thing to do.

Louise – the ‘We are open’ idea discussed last week might need to be phased. Possible for small organisations but need to do it in a coordinated way.

David – The What Next chairs meeting could be best placed to offer guidance. Strategy of exiting lockdown is likely to be one of the discussions next week.

Tanya – Dundee council have imposed blanket ban on all public events happening til October of more than 500 people https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-51899757

So far there hasn’t been a blanket ban as such in Brighton. Need for us as a city to work together and have a coordinated response. The ambiguity is taking its toll.

Marina:
Brighton Non NPOs got together to talk about pooling skills and resources and find collective ways of working. The idea is to build an emergency cultural infrastructure to support each other and pool resources city-wide in this emergency phase which will also serve to aid recovery phase.
Each organisation will put in £500 from ACE emergency fund for collective crowdsourcing. This is about pooling resources, rather than artform specific. There is still time for other organisations to join.

Brighton People’s Theatre
Marlboarough Theatre
Spire
Little Green Pig
Shared Space and Light
The Old Market
LOOKOUT Brighton

Wider support networks outside of Brighton that may be useful

-South East Creatives
-Cultural Strategy Group (Jess, Eastbourne)
-Louise - collating a national independent artist network of about 40 professionals of different expertise offering support. People are welcome to join.

Discussion around what smaller organisations need from NPOs in the city?
What are the needs of individual artists from NPOs? What can NPOs offer at this time?
David offered to create a survey to gather information and will share this on the cultureinourcity website.

Discussion about how we collectively relaunch culture in the city. This will also be discussed at the next Platform 9 live event. (A follow up to their first session, this is an event to discuss how to support freelance performing artists and independent venues in the city.) The next live event is next Wednesday and they are looking for independent artists to join.

Steven Brett from the British Council offered help for artists/ organisations. People can get in touch steven.brett@britishcouncil.org.

Actions:

David will make a survey around needs of artists and organisations and share with Branwen for website
Jenni will ask a member of the Brighton Fringe to join us for the next meeting.

Steven Brett from the British Council wanted to offer help for artist or organisations. People can get in touch steven.brett@britishcouncil.org.