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Here's Another Fine Mess You've Got Us Into! (Part 2)The English Experience For some years now the Arts Council of England (ACE) has been distributing large amounts of National Lottery funds for theatres to rebuild and expand their facilities. In order to qualify to funds from the Lottery, clients have had to find matched funding. Some of this might come from borough councils, some from county councils, but much of it had to be obtained in sponsorship from companies which wished to give something back to their communities (and which also were quite glad of the tax relief such donations brought!). But, of course, not every company which wants to support its local community wants to do so through theatre. They might want to support educational or health provision, or ground-level community provision, or sport. After all, sponsoring a premiership football team is going to net them considerably more publicity, and get their name more widely known. Or sponsoring a playgroup or youth club will bring about more street-level approbation. Or they may feel that giving money to support a local comprehensive school in its bid to become, say, a specialist technology college, is a more positive and popular undertaking. So the number of companies willing to sponsor theatres or theatre companies is limited. And now, according to Arts and Business CEO Colin Tweedy last week, the amount of funding from this source is drying up. And, although last year's donations of £141m were a record, 50% of that figure was provided by just 3% of organisations! And we mustn't forget the number of spanking new or rebuilt and refurbished theatres with super-duper modern facilities which can't afford to operate, which are losing money because their costs have increased, due to the new building/equipment/whatever, beyond what they can raise at the box office. In addition, there are those which have spent enormous amounts of time and money putting together proposals which have subsequently been rejected. Such proposals aren't cheap, for in addition to the internal costs in terms of staff time, they had to commission architects, surveyors and other professionals to draw up detailed plans. Admittedly part of these costs were subsidised by a Lottery feasibility study grant, but only part. And before we comment on these, perhaps we should look at The Scottish Experience This is slightly different, for we are not looking at a funding body here, but a local authority. However the effects are the same. Anyone interested in the Ediburgh Fringe will have followed with great interest the Assembly Rooms saga. It's a very simple story. Basically Edinburgh City Council has, for many years, rented the Assembly Rooms (one of the "big three" venues) in George Street to Assembly Theatre, a company run by William Burdett-Coutts. By the end of 1998, Assembly Theatre owed a considerable amount in rent and were threatened with losing the contract. Burdett-Coutts made a major effort during the 1999 Fringe, putting on special benefit performances, and the debt was paid off. The City Council, however, was not satisfied, and put the running of the venue out to tender. Although this was done in September/October last year, no decision was due to be made until Monday 24th January, 2000, which left very little time for whoever won the contract to put together a programme which would make such a big venue profitable. The contenders were whittled down to two: Assembly Theatre and Scottish International (run by ex-artistic director of the Famous Grouse House, Hugh Loughlan). At the eleventh hour, Burdett-Coutts reminded the city council that they had entered into an agreement about Assembly Theatre's running the venue just two years before. The council checked, and sure enough, they had! They had just forgotten! Now Burdett-Coutts is back running the venue (albeit at double the rent) and Loughlan is threatening to sue, accusing the council of incompetence! Perhaps now is the time to make some comment.
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