The Stage is delighted to announce its Freelancer Scheme, offering free tickets for freelancers to the award-winning Future of Theatre conference 2025.

Due to extended support from Arts Council England, the scheme will offer more free tickets to freelancers than ever before – doubling the access from 2024 – to 400 digital tickets plus 20 in-person places.

The Stage’s Future of Theatre conference, in association with Moore Kingston Smith, returns on Wednesday, April 30 at @sohoplace, London. Since its inaugural event in 2021, the Future of Theatre conference has firmly cemented its place as a must-attend event within the theatre calendar. This year’s programme will be based around the theme of “survival”, exploring how the theatre sector can still thrive in challenging circumstances. As always, panels and talks will be future-looking, bringing together experts to discuss solutions that promote resilience and innovation.

Arts Council England also returns for the fourth year running as a partner, offering 400 online tickets and 20 in-person tickets for free to freelancers for the conference. This is an unmissable opportunity allowing those who are not employed within an organisation to join the conversation and network with industry leaders.

“We know that the theatre industry relies heavily on freelance staff – actors, directors, designers, producers, writers, stage crew and so on – but their voice is often not heard in conversations about the future of the sector,” Neil Darlison, director of theatre at Arts Council England, said. “The Future of Theatre Conference, a place where the theatre community can gather and ask itself important questions about our industry, is a key moment in the year, so it is crucial that the opinions of freelance staff are included in that discussion. The Arts Council is pleased, for a fourth year, to support the digital and in-person attendance of freelancers at this year’s conference.”

The Stage’s deputy editor and Future of Theatre co-programmer, Matt Hemley, said: “Freelancers are the backbone of our industry, but in recent years they have borne the brunt of difficulties faced by the sector, not least as some of the worst hit by the disruption caused by Covid. So we’re delighted to be able to offer these subsidised tickets to enable freelancers to come and be part of the Future of Theatre Conference, where we hope they will be inspired by the conversations that take place on the day.”

Ticket applications will open on Tuesday, February 18, via this portal . The scheme will only be available to freelancers working within theatre and the performing arts.

General sale tickets to the conference are available to purchase now via The Stage website. Subscribers to The Stage can also benefit from discounted tickets to the event.

The conference is sponsored by Moore Kingston Smith, LAMDA, and Preevue, and supported by Charcoalblue, John Good Ltd, and StaffSavvy.

About Future of Theatre

Future of Theatre, in association with Moore Kingston Smith, is an award-winning conference, taking place in-person and online on Wednesday, April 30 at @sohoplace, London. Future of Theatre was awarded Event of the Year at the PPA Independent Publishers Awards when it launched in 2021, and was the first event of its kind to bring the theatre sector back together since the start of the pandemic.

Co-programmed by The Stage’s deputy editor Matt Hemley, and cultural policy & research consultant Amanda Parker, the conference will continue to explore what lies ahead for the performing arts sector and initiate conversations that challenge, educate and combine ideas between theatremakers from all areas of the industry. The 2024 conference included a speech and Q&A from former shadow culture secretary, Thangam Debbonaire, who shared the proposed arts policy of a Labour government, and a keynote from Bristol Old Vic’s artistic director, Nancy Medina, on the future of writing. Panel discussions included Dear Climate Activist…, Four nations, one theatre?, and Commercial producing: the next generation. This year’s exciting speakers and panels will be announced soon.

It also saw the return of The Big Idea, in which theatremakers and industry professionals pitch their big idea which would innovate the theatre industry. As voted by our delegates, Andrew Ladd won for his proposal for building a shared repository of ticket sales data for the industry. This year’s conference will feature The Big Idea again, with more information to be announced soon.

Website: https://www.thestage.co.uk/events/future-of-theatre-conference

#FutureOfTheatre

 About Arts Council England

Arts Council England is the national development agency for creativity and culture. Arts Council England’s vision, set out in its strategy Let’s Create, is that by 2030, Arts Council England want England to be a country in which the creativity of each of us is valued and given the chance to flourish, and where every one of us has access to a remarkable range of high-quality cultural experiences. Between 2023 and 2026 Arts Council England will have invested over £467 million of public money from Government, alongside an estimated £250 million each year from The National Lottery, to help ensure that people in every part of the country have access to culture and creativity in the places where they live. Until Autumn 2025, the National Lottery is celebrating its 30th anniversary of supporting good causes in the United Kingdom: since the first draw was held in 1994, it has raised £49 billion and awarded more than 690,000 individual grants.

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