We are Play to the Crowd, the arts and education charity that runs Theatre Royal Winchester, Hat Fair and Playmakers.
The effects of the coronavirus pandemic are financially devastating us. While social distancing is enforced, our vital work is impossible.
The theatre cannot open.
The festival cannot happen.
Workshops and activities cannot bring our community together.
When Theatre Royal Winchester was forced to close on 16 March, we lost all of our ticket and bar income overnight (80% of our charity’s turnover).
Prior to this our charity was thriving, with a strengthening financial position, excellent governance and leadership and an exciting new re-brand.
Since March, we’ve taken significant measures and made difficult decisions to safeguard the future of our charity.
So far we have:
- Minimised our cost base by furloughing 90% of our team from the latter part of March (and will continue to utilise the UK Government’s Job Retention scheme until the support ends)
- Accessed all financial support available to us from the UK Government, and applied to Arts Council England’s Emergency Fund
- Consulted with our stakeholders and audiences about how we can best serve our community now and in a post-Covid world
- Entered a period of consultation with our staff to re-structure the organisation to make significant cost and overhead savings
Our generous audiences have also already raised a fantastic £25,000 donating their ticket monies and purchasing memberships since we closed.
But all of this is still not enough.
We need £225,000 by September to survive this crisis.
We are looking at every avenue to secure these funds. We hope this crowdfunder will help us to raise at least £60,000 towards our target, and help you, our audience, to continue to make an extremely impactful contribution to our survival.
Donate now and your support will:
- Ensure we can continue to exist and deliver you joyous and life-affirming activities at Theatre Royal Winchester, Hat Fair and through Playmakers
- Retain as many of our highly skilled and experienced staff as possible, who are committed to mentoring, supporting and serving our community into the future
- Maintain our beautiful heritage theatre building, which stands at the cultural heart of Winchester as a vital community asset
- Create and develop our new future, post Covid-19, so live performance and participation can thrive in our community
Our arts and education charity exists to delight and unite through the power of live performance.
We are a unique and vital connecting force between artists and audiences.
We ensure that live performance thrives in our community with equal opportunities for everyone.
In 2019/20 we gave:
- 300+ FREE performances enjoyed by 90,000+ people at Hat Fair
- 70,000+ people comedy, theatre, dance, panto, music and opera performances at Theatre Royal Winchester
- 10,000+ local school pupils creative workshops, educational theatre visits and careers support
- 2,500+ community performers, emerging and established artists access to our unique theatre space and skilled mentoring
- £1 million+ in additional positive economic impact for Winchester.
Until we can join together again in a shared space - telling each other stories, laughing and crying and cheering and learning together - this vital work is not financially sustainable.
Please give to this appeal to support a robust future for Play to the Crowd.
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Play to the Crowd is an arts and education charity, based in Winchester, Hampshire. Our family comprises of:
- Theatre Royal Winchester - a beautiful middle scale heritage theatre, one of the only surviving cine-variety theatres in the UK
- Hat Fair - the oldest operating Outdoor Arts Festival in the country
- Playmakers - a range of community engagement and creative learning programmes and activities for all ages
We exist to delight and unite everyone through the power of live performance. We inspire people to connect with and participate in live performance - both indoors and out – inviting them to 'escape from the ordinary' and discover a lifelong love of theatre and the arts.
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Reassurances
We can guarantee that all your donations will go to ensuring we can meet our core objective which is to sustain our charity and its component parts: Theatre Royal Winchester, Hat Fair and Playmakers. If we were unable to achieve that your money would be returned.
We can guarantee that any advance ticket sales money is ring fenced and kept safe for you whatever the challenges faced by the charity. You can continue booking tickets safe in the knowledge that your money is safe with us and that a full refund would be offered if we were unable to present the event.
