The Pin Hinge Collective are a subsidised company. This means we are a not-for-profit organisation and we can only fund the work we make. As we are a small-scale theatre company, if we were to seek government funding we would primarily look at the Big Lottery Fund, and specifically the Grants for the Arts pot, which is their “open access funding programme for individuals, art organisations and other people who use the arts in their work” (Arts Council England, 2017). Here you can get grants between £1,000 and £100,000. The type of projects they fund are outlined on their website, and include “festival, organisational development, original work, participation, performance, production” (ibid). Despite being eligible for government funds, they will only fund up to 90% of a project and so fundraising is key to ensuring we receive a grant. We have already successfully raised money from a themed quiz night and a raffle, and so we are able to prove our stability and innovation when applying for this grant.

However, in order to receive funding from Arts Council England we would not only have to provide a detailed income and expenditure’s list alongside suitable eligibility, we also have to give details of our organisation’s artistic quality. Because we are an emerging theatre company with no past work to reference to, we would have to give details on how the current project will develop our organisation. We would also need to give details on public engagement; from this it is important to understand the ten different audience segments that The Audience Agency identify. For our performance of Kalopsia, the identified audience segments we will be engaging are Metroculturals: “[p]rosperous, liberal, urbanites interested in a very wide cultural spectrum” (ibid), and Experience Seekers: “[h]ighly active, diverse, social and ambitious, engaging with arts on a regular basis” (ibid); this is due to the diverse student population of Lincoln. By intertwining a straight play with contemporary means such as Black Light elements and physical theatre, these segments are engaging with modern cultural performance.

As choreographer, my focus principally falls on the artistic quality and public engagement of our project. I need to understand which audience segments our project targets and to understand our audiences level of cultural engagement, to determine how the demographic will respond to the content we create. As  our primary audience are already engaged with the arts on a regular basis and are open to new cultural experiences, I am allowing for a more liberal exploration with our use of physical theatre in the performance as there are fewer limitations.

Arts Council England (2017) Grants for the Arts. London: Arts Council England. [online] Available from http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/funding/grants-arts [Accessed 16 May 2017].

Arts Council England (2017) Culture-based segmentation. London: Arts Council England. [online] Available from http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/participating-and-attending/culture-based-segmentation [Accessed 16 May 2017].