The Touring Working Group has met twice now, pooling our collective minds around the aim of increasing the reach and sustainability of touring circus in the UK.

Essentially: How do we create a robust network of venues for circus touring? Beyond the key venues that already programme significant amounts of circus work, how can we encourage those who have occasionally programmed circus to do more, and introduce circus into venues where it has not been included yet?

One clear change we want to see is for circus shows to have a longer touring life, reaching more venues and more audiences once they have been created.

This discussion has taken into account the current landscape, in all its Covid-19 related complexity and understanding that both artists and venues will be re-emerging with leaner budgets.

We have been investigating how a mentoring and support project by key circus venues and producers might enable the emergence of more circus producers and new circus venues.

The need for more producers was discussed as being equally valuable as expanding the venue network.

We also acknowledged the impact of the informal mentoring that is already going on: key venues introduce circus works to their network and support them in the technical or marketing content; producers like Turtle Key Arts who mentor artists in producing; artists with strong venue relationships introducing other work. We’ve also touched on the legacy of past projects like Circus Evolution and the technical audit project of Ockham’s Razor, with the desire to avoid re-inventing any wheels.

Scalability has been a key point that keeps coming up in talking about building robust and sustainable touring networks. The idea that work can be made with the ability to adapt to different scales, which would open up wider potential touring networks, from theatres to arts centres and rural touring venues.

We have discussed how circus might be placed as a solution for venues in the rebuilding of their audiences as we emerge from the closures of the past year.

Communicating clearly to audiences about circus works (both by venues and artists) was considered as an area where mentorship might be useful. Circus is such a wide ranging art form, that being able to create copy/content and images that reach out to the audience of the work is a specific skill. A couple of resources that already exists which might be useful to you are:

• The ACE resource of a Digital Culture Network, who can support all levels of digital marketing, content creation etc.

• Creative Scotland produced a workbook for helping people to identify ways of communicating about their work.

There was also an idea that artists/emerging producers could be supported in how to communicate their work to venues, especially those with less experience of circus programming - info packs, tech riders, promo content, images that will make it more likely for venues to delve into discussion and bookings of their work. This would be part of expanding the touring network by helping to make those conversations more productive.

As a group, we are working to identify and shape potential actions or projects that could have the biggest possible impact on creating a thriving circus touring network, with sustainable and wide reaching tours for the work that is coming out of the circus community. Something that could be a part of Circus Change Up’s multifaceted sector development project. We will meet again in the spring and would be delighted to have your voice added into the mix!

If you’d like to join the conversation, you can send your thoughts by email to Charmaine - sign up to join our working group and be part of the next meeting.

The Touring Working Group is Co-convened by: Charmaine Childs (Strong Lady Productions) and Amanda O’Reilly (Worthing Theatres)