The Stage

A Night Less Ordinary ticket scheme to be “curtailed”

Published Thursday 17 June 2010 at 15:11 by Alistair Smith

A Night Less Ordinary, Arts Council England’s free ticket scheme for under-26 year olds, is to be “curtailed” under plans unveiled by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to make £73 million of savings.

The proposed cuts to ANLO will form only a small part - around £100,000 - of the overall savings, which also include scrapping funding for the £45 million BFI Film Centre and £17 million for the Stonehenge visitor centre.

The DCMS is currently in discussions with ACE as to exactly how and to what extent the £2.5 million scheme will be cut, as many of the theatres taking part in the project are already signed up for two years, ending early in 2011. However, it is hoped that the move will save around £100,000.

A DCMS spokesperson told The Stage: “We are curtailing the A Night Less Ordinary free theatre ticket scheme as far as contractually possible. The department will work with Arts Council England to determine how this can best be done, given the contracts already in place, and from that determine what savings will be made.”

While in opposition, the Conservative culture team were highly critical of the free ticket scheme, which was launched by then culture secretary Andy Burnham at a Labour Party Conference in 2008.

The project received mixed reactions from the sector following its launch, with many complaining the industry had not been consulted and Charlotte Jones, director of the Independent Theatre Council, acknowledging there was “generally quite a lot of disgruntlement about the idea”.

Later, Labour culture minister Margaret Hodge admitted that ANLO had been rushed through.

Earlier this year, The Stage revealed that the entire communications budget for the scheme had already been exhausted, despite the fact that the project had nearly a year to run and was still well short of its stated target of giving away in excess of 500,000 free tickets to under 26 year olds. Originally, the scheme had been designed to give away more than a million free tickets.

At the time, culture minister Ed Vaizey, then in opposition, said: “We now know that in order to keep the scheme going, the arts council will have to find money from a budget that could otherwise have been used to fund arts organisations at a very difficult time.

“This shows how idiotic Labour’s scheme was and, what is even more amazing, is that they say in their manifesto they want to continue it.”

Meanwhile, DCMS has also announced that the Find Your Talent pilot scheme will also be cut, saving around £2 million. Find Your Talent had aimed to give schoolchildren the access to five hours of culture a week.

It was also launched by Burnham in 2008, but was greeted with criticism from the teaching sector.

Speaking at the time of the project’s launch, Dr John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “Everyone would want young people to engage more in positive activities and schools play their part in encouraging pupils to do worthwhile things. Many of these activities are already offered in schools - music groups, drama productions, theatre visits, for example. But it is not possible for schools to make provision for every pupil to have an entitlement to do five hours per week of such activities.”

Meanwhile, National Union of Teachers general secretary Steve Sinnott warned that in order for the scheme to work, extra cash has to be plugged into schools and arts centres, and the “excessive testing regime” must be lifted from schools to allow for creativity.

Professional Association of Teachers national chairperson Geraldine Everett said: “This is an admirable intention, but naive. It is fine-sounding rhetoric, but demonstrates little understanding of the practical issues.”