Repayable grants of up to £500,000 are available to enable more mid-and-large-scale theatre and dance productions in the UK to tour their productions.
The Art Council’s new Incentivising Touring Scheme, which has a budget of £5 million over two rounds, provides repayable grants designed to enable more mid and large-scale theatre and dance productions in the UK to tour their productions.
The central aims of the Incentivising Touring: Repayable Grants for Theatre and Dance scheme are to:
- Enable more high-quality dance and theatre productions to tour.
- Give boards and investors increased confidence and incentive to support tours.
- Give venues and producers the ability to create, tour and programme a greater range of work, and
- Provide audiences with more opportunities to see a range of quality dance and theatre productions at scale.
How the scheme works:
- Organisations can apply for up to 25% of their production’s capitalisation costs, up to a maximum of £500,000.
- Organisations can apply for investment to tour dance or theatre that is a new production (new work or new revival) or to remount a production for a new or first tour; theatre encompasses plays (including text-based, physical and visual theatre forms), musicals and circus.
- Any money received as part of this scheme will be in the form of a repayable grant.
- When organisations recoup their capitalisation costs, they should repay your other investors first, then Arts Council England. If they don’t recoup all your capitalisation costs, applying organisations will keep part or all of their repayable grant.
The following organisations can apply:
- UK-based, publicly funded, commercial and independent theatre and dance producers.
- Organisations registered in the UK with Companies House and/or the Charity Commission, with a UK bank account in its own name.
- National Portfolio Organisations (NPOs) and Transfer Organisations, and
- Organisations working in collaboration or co-production (one organisation must be the lead applicant).
- Organisations can check whether they’re eligible to apply on the Arts Council’s ‘Check your eligibility' page.
Please note that organisations interested in applying must have a 10-minute conversation with a member of the Incentivising Touring team before they apply. This conversation should be booked before 29 November 2024 and take place before 6 December 2024. This conversation will be an opportunity for applicants to ask any questions they may have about their tour’s suitability or eligibility, or about the application process. A conversation can be booked by emailing: incentivisingtouring@artscouncil.org.uk
The deadline for applying for Round 1 is midday on Monday 20 January 2025 with decisions in February 2025.
For tours to be eligible, the first day of rehearsals must start no earlier than Tuesday 1 April 2025 and the tour must end no later than Friday 31 March 2028.
Round 2 will launch in Spring 2025, with applications made over Summer 2025.
Further information, guidance, details about how to apply and an Eligibility Checker is available on the Arts Council’s website.