At the Labour party conference in 2008, the then Culture Secretary, Andy Burnham, pledged to make a million free theatre tickets available to people under 26 by 2011. Ed responded at the time:
‘While we would encourage greater participation in theatres, I have a huge problem with this initiative. I believe it was rushed through to give Andy Burnham something to say at the Labour Party conference. The £2.5 million is obviously not enough money for it to be a meaningful initiative and the implementation of it is being designed on the hoof. The arts council has been left holding the baby, forced to devise how the scheme would work and try to raise private money to support the scheme.’
He said that he felt that the concept of free theatre was potentially a good one, but that he feared the government had ruined the scheme’s chances of success by rushing it through and that:
‘What really worries me is that if the initiative doesn’t go well, it will damage any attempt to do something similar in the future, because people will say “we tried that and it didn’t work”.. If they had spent another six months thinking it through they could have put in a long-term effective initiative.’
Ed’s fears now appear vindicated as Margaret Hodge has admitted that the Government had not planned adequately or consulted the theatre industry before launching the A Night Less Ordinary scheme.
Figures published by Arts Council England, which was left to roll out the project in February 2009, show that only 121,742 tickets have been taken up by young theatregoers so far – less than 20 per cent of its revised target of 618,000 tickets. They have now set an even lower new target of 500,000 tickets.
Critics of the scheme have argued that many theatres including the National Theatre, The Globe Theatre and the Young Vic in London already offer young people heavily discounted tickets and that drawing new young audiences to the theatre is not solely related to ticket prices. Speaking at an event last week held by the National Campaign for the Arts, Dame Joan Bakewell, the NCA’s chair, challenged Hodge on the project:
‘Shouldn’t you have consulted the theatres? They would have tipped you off that the scheme was ill-advised. Instead, they had the policy foisted on them.’
To which Hodge replied:
‘I would have liked to see it work better. I think we should have spent a bit more time devising the scheme before we implemented it… I think that is a justified criticism.’
Mhora Samuel, director of the Theatres Trust, said:
‘Providing opportunities for young people to access theatre experiences is not just related to the ticket price, but also about engaging young people’s interests in putting on work that attracts them into theatres… Any initiative like this always works better when done in consultation with the sector and that didn’t happen.’
Louise de Winter, director of the NCA, added:
‘Instead of sitting down with the theatre sector and talking through how to make it work, the scheme was thrust on everyone who had to scrabble around and make it fit… In the arts sector, £2.5 million is a significant amount of funding, which appears to have been wasted here.’
Ed has now called for the scheme to be scrapped:
‘We said from the outset this was a gimmick aimed at grabbing cheap headlines, and a significant amount of money has been spent on a hunch and a whim which has proven to be a spectacular failure… It should be scrapped before any more money is wasted. A Conservative government will work with theatres and the Arts Council in putting together a scheme that actually engages young audiences.’
You can read further coverage of this story in The Telegraph HERE and The Stage HERE.
