We’re carrying out a national inquiry which aims to capture and contextualise the experiences of older* practitioners* involved in small-scale touring*. At the end of this activity, we’ll produce a case study making recommendations for sector change which can better support those who want or need to keep working later in life.

Over the course of six months, through a programme of surveys, conversations, forums, and interviews, we’ll gather the perspectives of people (mostly those aged 55+) who play some part in the small-scale touring process — including those who make, appear in, or produce touring productions; those who present or promote touring productions; those who support or fund touring productions; and those who attend touring productions as audiences.

Everyone we speak to or hear from — whether they’re a practitioner or not — will be invited to share their thoughts about the impact of age and ageing on their particular small-scale touring role or function. We’ll ask about the range of factors which help or hinder older practitioners and older audiences — and about the areas where changes and improvements could be made.

If you’re aged 55 or over, based in the UK, are involved in the small-scale touring of live performance, and would like to take part in our online survey — click the button below. Everyone who completes the survey will be in with a chance of winning £100 of Theatre Tokens!

* Here are some useful definitions to help clarify what we mean by “older”, “practitioner”, “enabler” and “small-scale touring”:

Older — someone aged 55 or over
We’ve based this age threshold on UK pension rules: the minimum normal pension age allows individuals to access private and workplace pensions starting at age 55. (This age will be rising to 57 in 2028).

Practitioner — a professional who is actively engaged in the creation, performance, facilitation, or delivery of live performance (incl. theatre, dance, music, comedy, and combined arts).

Enabler — someone whose work or efforts support other people to create, perform, facilitate, or deliver live performance, but who is not actively creating, performing, facilitating, or delivering live performance themselves.

Small-scale touring — live performance (incl. theatre, dance, music, comedy, and combined arts) which tours to venues/spaces with a capacity of below 300 seats

We are developing additional routes to ensure we can hear from people aged under 55 whose experiences and perspectives are relevant to the inquiry, but for the purposes of this particular survey, we’re confining our participant parameters to people aged 55 and over.