We’ve written a piece for the latest TM Theatres Magazine that you can download here. TM is produced by the Theatres Trust and yesterday Tim Jones, our Head of Strategy and Placemaking, chaired a panel at the Trust’s annual conference. This year’s conference took place at the Milton Court Theatre and explored questions and ideas around the value of theatres in the commercial development context. Sessions brought together experts from architecture, the property sector, valuation, local authorities, philanthropy as well as the UK’s diverse theatre constituency: small and large-scale, commercial and grant-funded, ‘permanent’ and meanwhile (in the form of interim use experts Theatre Delicatessen).
Tim chaired a panel exploring how theatres can enter into new relationships with the commercial property sector, bringing together experts including Susie Gray, Cultural Consultant for the Vauxhall and Nine Elms Partnership; Barry Pritchard, Executive Director at Aedas RHWL / Arts Team; Ben Ridgewell, Portfolio Director at Land Securities and Teresa Early, Artistic Director of Theatre Peckham. For this session the conference was also joined by Harvey Goldsmith CBE, one of the UK if not the world’s most successful and dynamic cultural entrepreneurs. As well as sharing plans for his new venue in Wembley, Harvey shared his thoughts on a range of topics including the need for greater skills in confident cultural enterprise among the next generation and the need for compelling, clear and well researched propositions to be developed by creative organisations that seek to step into commercial or mixed economy collaborations.
The conference transcript will be available in due course over at the Theatres Trust website In the meantime, let us know your thoughts on our article. As we state therein, Futurecity actively brokers opportunities into the property sector for theatres as well as other cultural organisations: contact Tim directly if you’d like to hear more about the services we can offer you.
Image: The Bookshop Theatre, Southwark – part of Futurecity’s cultural placemaking research in 2012 proposing an ‘Off-Broadway District for London’. Image (c) Damon Cleary.