To provide high quality and much needed outdoor entertainment and activities to our community. To keep producing, keep safe and keep dry!
by Riverhouse Barn Arts Centre in Walton On Thames, England, United Kingdom
We're thrilled to have reached our initial £14,000 target!
However, we're still inviting pledges in the remaining days until the campaign closes on April 24th.
Any money we raise over our initial target will help to buy new sound & light equipment for the outdoor staging. We also want to improve the audience experience, providing cover for them as well as the performers.
Since opening in 1989 Riverhouse has built a reputation as a high-quality arts centre with community at the heart of everything we do.
We provide a year-round programme of events which includes drama, music, traditional and modern jazz, children’s shows, cabaret and art exhibitions. We also offer classes in arts and crafts for all ages, adults, young people and toddlers. We have a small but welcoming community café that promotes health, wellbeing and sustainability.
Covid 19 has prevented us from opening our doors to our wonderfully supportive community and we are now having to rethink how we engage with our audiences. As we have such a small capacity indoors, the only way we will be able to survive is to take our programme outdoors.
We have a large car park which we can transform into an outside performance space and which will enable us to make our programme financially viable and offer much needed entertainment, social interaction and solidarity.
We want to increase our outdoor programme to cope with social distancing regulations and ensure that our community is safe.
To do this, we need to raise £14,000 for a proper outdoor stage, so that our equipment and performers remain covered and dry if the weather turns.
This will also enable us to offer the stage to other community groups to use, so that they, too, can continue to create and perform.
We are planning a summer arts festival, including many local choirs, an International festival of food and arts, a folk festival, jazz festival, comedy nights and theatre for all ages.
We are thrilled to be receiving so much support from artists who have performed at the Barn, including Tony Hawks, Lukas Drinkwater, Peter Knight, Ninebarrow, Chesney Hawkes, Melissa James and Milton Jones!
Riverhouse Barn Arts Centre is a community arts centre, part run by volunteers and a small management team. We bucked the trend by keeping going throughout the pandemic, with online play readings, classes, concerts of all sorts and theatre. Covid-19 has hit our artists hard, but with your help we can keep them in business and our community entertained and stimulated whatever the world throws at us!