Shoreham’s Ropetackle confirms schools and nurseries outreach programme
Shoreham’s Ropetackle is formalising and launching its Outreach Programme as it seeks to extend its traditionally-friendly welcome to ever-younger audiences.
Tom Beard, outreach officer and programmer at the venue, knows the importance of renewing your audiences as you look to your longer-term future.
“We have got a new programme that we are doing that we're calling our Outreach Programme. Really this is a double prong. We're looking for schools and nurseries to come along to see the shows and we're also looking for sponsors who might be able to offer subsidised tickets for the schools in return for which they will get lots of lovely coverage.
“At the Ropetackle we need to get more out into the community and to engage more with younger audiences, and this is the way that we're going to try to find new people. We need to start looking for younger audiences because our audiences are getting older.”
The venue is fortunate to enjoy great loyalty from its audiences but Tom and the team are aware that they do need to look towards the new audiences that might be out there.
“We are offering free films to nurseries and heavily-subsidised tickets for shows for key stage one, two, three and four for shows that are curriculum based or are just maybe fun.
“We did a Santa show at Christmas and we've had several shows including recycling mixed with aliens. The outreach is something we've done over the last few years, but now we are really wanting to bring in the schools. Now it is part of a programme, a much more targeted approach.
“The whole thing is open-ended. We've got the programme sorted for the next year and we're really looking for half a dozen schools to get involved.”
It comes at a time when the venue, which recently celebrated its 18th birthday, is doing well: “Things are going great. We have always punched above our weight and we've got some great shows lined up. We've had some great comedians and we've got some great headliners coming through along with all the other stuff, the music and so on.”
Any nurseries, schools or sponsors wanting to get involved should get in touch with Tom at the venue.