ACE considers investing in commercial touring theatre

Arts Council England is considering branching out into commercial theatre investment in a bid to help support the UK’s struggling touring market.

If ACE goes ahead with the plans, it would be the first time the public body has funded in this fashion, expecting return on its investment.

The initiative has is one of a range of recommendations in a new report co-commissioned by ACE and UK Theatre, the membership organisation for regional theatres and producers.

The report, Theatre Touring in the 21st Century – An Exploration of New Financial Models, was commissioned in response to the growing challenges facing touring theatre in the UK. It calls for the introduction of an investment fund, run by a third-party at arm’s length from ACE, that would invest in high-quality shows that are likely to generate a profit. These shows could be commercial productions, or transfers from the subsidised sector operating on a commercial basis, with the report citing War Horse and Matilda as examples.

The value of using ACE funds for this, the report claims, is that it would mean “some, or all, of that expenditure can be recycled when the project is over” and that the “sum returned could be considerably more than the original investment”. This, it adds, would allow for the “development and exploitation of further shows”.

UK Theatre executive director David Brownlee said “money is extremely tight” in the touring sector with particular difficulties around medium- and small-scale touring.

“There is not a lot of product around,” he said. “This report ensures we have a far better picture of what the available resources are for touring and gives us some good ideas on what new things could be done to get more money into the sector. Unless we do something now… circuits that are crumbling could fall completely.”

Brownlee said UK Theatre was “particularly interested” in the proposal of ACE setting up a commercial investment fund, which he said could be a “real game changer” for the sector.

“If a show is a hit, money would go back into ACE’s coffers to reinvest, and that sounds like a really good idea to us,” he said.

ACE executive director Simon Mellor said the organisation would “consider carefully all the recommendations in the report” including the proposal for a system of commercial investment.

“As the way that theatre is made and tours evolves and when we know the outcome of the spending review we need to be sure that our funding mechanisms remain relevant and that we trial initiatives to test that,” he said.

The report, written by Graham Devlin and Alan Dix, also calls on ACE to seek permission from “finance ministries” to use both its grant-in-aid and Lottery funding for short-term loans.

The report says this would remove the need for producers to apply for higher interest loans from finance houses. Its recommendations also include asking arts companies to link up to create consortiums, and coming together to “co-exist” in buildings.

This has been welcomed by Theatres Trust director Mhora Samuel, who said arts funders “must support consortiums of producers and theatres to act as investors and improve the exchange of information and knowledge about audiences and productions”.

“Funders’ roles should be to invest in the capacity of consortia to create, commission and adopt some of the financial models suggested in the report,” she said.

To read the report in full, go to www.uktheatre.org.