Plan to offer a million free theatre tickets to under-26s

Published Tuesday 23 September 2008 at 16:25 by Alistair Smith

Culture secretary Andy Burnham has unveiled a new £2.5 million scheme that aims to give out one million free theatre tickets to under 26-year olds across England.

The project, which was announced by Burnham during the Labour Party Conference in Manchester, will launch in February for a two-year pilot with 95 venues across the country expected to be involved.

Theatres will have to apply to be part of the scheme and will then be granted shares of the cash pot - understood to be new money, rather than existing Arts Council England funding - for individual offers at the venues, which will be publicised jointly by ACE as a unified programme.

A requirement of the separate ticketing schemes must be that they “offer a proportion of the tickets for arts productions on the same night every week - free - to anyone under 26 years old” and extend over the full two-year period.

Launching the programme, Burnham said that it would mean “a whole new audience will get the chance to enjoy the best our theatre has to offer”. He added: “Theatres up and down the country will get the chance to work with us to provide a million free tickets to productions over the next two years. So it will be good for theatres, who will see their audience broaden, and it will be good for actors, who play at their best when performing to a full house.”

The programme, which has been developed from initial proposals for a free week of theatre suggested by the McMaster Report into excellence in the arts, will be operated by ACE.

However the precise criteria for entry into the scheme have yet to be finalised. While it “will operate principally at Arts Council England or local authority-supported venues”, it has not yet been made clear whether the commercial sector will be excluded.

The announcement has been met with widespread approval in the sector, although many are still keen to find out further details of exactly how the programme will work.

National Campaign for the Arts director Louise de Winter said that she “cautiously welcomed” the proposals.

She added: “If this is new money it is to be welcomed, especially if that money is directed to increasing understanding of and widening access to the arts. However, the Department for Culture Media and Sport and Arts Council England, who are administering the fund, must make sure that the money actually does find its way to new audiences. There will be no benefit to the arts if this money is used to give regular theatregoers a freebie.”

Meanwhile, Tory shadow arts minister Ed Vaizey said that he “hugely welcomed” any scheme that increased access to the arts, but had specific concerns about its implementation.

He told The Stage: “If this scheme does what it says on the tin, it will be hugely popular with young people. However, it is worth asking whether this is genuinely new money or whether this £2.5 million has been filched from another part of the arts budget. And it’s also worth asking whether £2.5 million can genuinely deliver one million free tickets in two years. We don’t quite see how that adds up.

“Our other concern would be that a scheme like this should not just be a short-term gimmick announced to get a headline at a Labour party conference, but should be a long term commitment to increasing access to theatres to young people.”