'Theatre Means Business' Website Launched To Help Industry Prepare For Post-Lockdown Fightback

Society of London Theatre and UK Theatre have created TheatreMeansBusiness.info, an online platform highlighting a range of live and recorded webinars to equip the theatre industry with the tools to begin rebuilding after the COVID-19 lockdown ends.

Created by SOLT, UK Theatre and partner organisations and hosted by experts in their field, the webinars will cover topics currently front-of-mind to many theatre industry professionals, including business interruption planning, audience development for recovery, and professional and personal resilience.

Sebastian Cater, Head of UK Theatre & Workforce Development, said:

'Our members are having to take some tough decisions about their organisations at present, and we wanted to help them and the wider sector by creating this website. We've curated these webinars to provide the resources and support our workforce needs to plan for the future. We are extremely grateful to all the consultants and agencies we are working with on this project, many of whom have donated their time to help the industry as it rebuilds itself.'

The webinars have been designed to appeal to a range of experience levels. Most do not require SOLT or UK Theatre membership to join, as the aim is to provide advice and support to as many offstage industry professionals as possible - whether someone is working from home on business planning, furloughed and needing inspiration, or new to the industry and wanting professional development.

To make them more accessible, many of the webinars will be free of charge - with some SOLT and UK Theatre sessions giving the option to make a contribution, to be split between the two organisations and the invited speaker. Some partner webinars may have a cost attached.

TheatreMeansBusiness.info has been created by SOLT and UK Theatre's digital team over the past three weeks as a direct response to the extraordinary events of recent times. More webinars will be programmed in the coming weeks based on feedback and suggestions from the theatre sector.

Full information about each webinar can be found on theatremeansbusiness.info on the webinar event pages.