James Dacre: Producers and venues need a stimulus plan to mitigate risk

A new year, a new lockdown. We started 2021 tired and demoralised and for many theatres the darkest days may be yet to come. After 10 months without revenue, the margin for error is paper-thin and the future more uncertain than ever before.

Yet the storm our sector weathered last year has also made us more inclusive, collaborative and innovative in how we work together to plan that future. I believe we can emerge stronger, but to revive our regional sector and re-engage our freelance workforce we must focus above all on nurturing a healthy touring ecosystem.

Regional theatres rely on box-office income to survive. Commercial success on our main stages subsidises all our other essential activity. For most of us outside London, the lion’s share of our box office comes from presenting visiting productions and co-producing and touring our work.

Touring was tough before the pandemic. The escalating costs of making and marketing work, pressure on margins, tightening resources and the increasing challenge of booking acting companies for long engagements had profoundly affected the touring landscape.

Yet there are few better ways for the arts to address the increasingly fractured way we see ourselves as a nation. Touring productions diversify regional theatres’ programmes, bringing new voices to their audiences. They also play a central role in engaging thousands of freelancers across our industry, many of whom have been ineligible for any government support.

Covid-19 has of course only exacerbated touring theatre’s problems. Measures required to rehearse and perform safely have raised costs, while social distancing restrictions and uncertain economic headwinds have dramatically reduced revenues.

Touring is the lifeblood that will enable our regional theatres to thrive again

At Royal and Derngate, swathes of visiting productions continue to be postponed as their producers remain uncertain as to when we can reopen and under what conditions. In 2019, we toured our homegrown Made in Northampton work to more than 80 theatres across the UK and abroad. So far, we have secured only a handful of touring dates for 2021.

So, what can be done to ensure a future where commercial producers can afford to tour, our groundbreaking subsidised theatre companies can visit theatres nationwide and regional theatres can collaborate to co-produce and tour their own work?

First, we urgently need a government-backed insurance scheme for touring theatre, to mitigate the risk of sudden lockdowns. An extension of last summer’s VAT cut for the performing arts and an increase in theatre tax relief from 25% to 50% would also have a transformative impact.

Promisingly, there is also talk of new partnerships between regional producing theatres, commercial producers, subsidised producing companies and the Arts Council. A new spirit of collaboration – rather than competition – will bear commercial and creative fruit. New national touring networks or regional hubs could work together to ensure that productions are properly resourced, deals are fair and the work is good, as in many European countries.

The best approach would be a stimulus plan – such as the kind now being discussed in America – of funding for touring companies, commercial producers and producing theatres to mitigate the significant additional costs of making and touring theatre within Covid protocols and to help underwrite the risk and box-office shortfall initially caused by social distancing.

When it’s safe for live theatre to return, touring is the lifeblood that will enable our regional theatres to thrive again. It can also be a way of nationally restoring confidence in the very value of theatre.