During the pandemic, Reading Borough Council’s Arts & Venues service championed theatre, by staging live and digital performances, and maximised opportunities to improve our customers’ experience.
Introduction
During the pandemic, Reading Borough Council’s Arts & Venues service championed theatre, by staging live and digital performances, and maximised opportunities to improve our customers’ experience. We focused on keeping the Hexagon operating and reopening as soon as possible to support the local cultural sector and night time economy. We value the social and economic benefits culture brings locally and are committed to making theatre accessible to audiences who face barriers in doing so, whilst contributing to the Council’s ambition for a net zero carbon Reading by 2030.
The challenge
Reading Borough Council’s Reading Arts & Venues service comprises the Hexagon Theatre, South Street Theatre and the Concert Hall in Reading Town Hall.
We supported and championed theatre and the cultural sector locally. The venues worked with partners like Berkshire Maestros, RABBLE Theatre, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Imagine Theatre and local theatre groups like Redcape to develop and adapt programme to respond to the challenges of Covid.
The Hexagon is a 1,200 seat theatre and was one of the first theatres to open in October 2020 with an adapted programme including comedy, event cinema and specially commissioned family concerts from long standing partner the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO).
We continued to deliver excellent customer service and secure customer confidence, through introducing a full digital journey, from ticket booking and e-ticket scanning to pre-ordering food and drink, integrated in a new ePoint of Sale system. The venues produced shows were available digitally on WhatsOnReading.com.
In May 2020, in partnership with Reading UK and the University of Reading, we launched Reading Culture Live, a digital venue for cultural creators to showcase their work, create a digital community and to provide free to access cultural content. Delivered within eight weeks, the site hosted over 100 local arts organisations with 278 events, to over 80 countries with c.18,000 unique visitors. The success of RCL has since been embedded into WhatsOnReading.com.
The Hexagon Theatre was built in 1977 and retains many of its original features. It is a much-admired example of brutalist architecture, but is now dated and needs to be modernised to remain financially competitive and support the Council’s ambition for a net zero carbon Reading by 2030.
The solution
In March 2020, The Hexagon was transformed in ten days into a community hub, providing over 1,232 food deliveries and supported hundreds of Reading’s most isolated and vulnerable families. Over 20 theatre, events and leisure staff gave their time to assist the council’s response. View the Hexagon at the heart of the council’s covid response in this video.
In partnership with Reading UK, we operate WhatsOnReading.com, a guide to arts, culture and heritage events in Reading, with 500,000 users annually and supporting over 150 cultural organisations.
Successfully securing over £1.5 million in Cultural Recovery Funding, enabled Reading Arts & Venues to operate, trialling and testing new ways of working and eventually re-opening with socially distanced programme, with new technology incorporated into the customer journey.
Both venues invested time and energy in re-opening at the earliest possibility during the pandemic restrictions. South Street was successful in securing funds from ACE to create two theatre shows for small audiences with Covid secure measures in place.
Produced by South Street, as part of its award-winning ‘theatre in unusual spaces’ strand SITELINES, two innovative Arts Council funded shows have been created in collaboration with resident artists in an attempt to address ‘the strange times we all find ourselves in – whilst we’re still experiencing them.
‘Behind Closed Doors’, performed to audiences of 20 over 13 sold out shows in October 2020, in the small window available between lockdowns, one of the only venues to manage to present work during that time.
‘On Track’ re-opened The Hexagon in May 2021 and reimagined the venue as a velodrome, with a cycling themed show. Both events were available digitally for audiences unable to attend.
We are seeking funding, to complement the Council’s funding, to prioritise decarbonisation through improved lighting and heating solutions by installing a ground source heat pump and installing Solar PV and LED lighting.
The impact
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Reading Arts sold 121,106 tickets in 21/22 – despite lockdown closures.
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£2.7 million box office income in 21/22.
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Reading Arts revenue is 79 per cent more than the national average benchmark.
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The Hexagon’s 2021 pantomime Beauty and the Beast nominated for Best Pantomime (over 900 Seats) in the UK Pantomime Association Awards.
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Voted Runner-Up in the Best Theatre category at this year's Little Ankle Biter Berkshire Awards.
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85 per cent of the audience rated events 4 stars and above, with 87 per cent rating the venues good value.
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We have a long standing partnership with the RPO and are working on a joint project to bring classical music to some of the borough’s most deprived wards and removing barriers to accessing performances at the Hexagon.
How is the new approach being sustained?
Retaining and growing customer confidence post covid has been essential in maintaining box office figures. Both venues follow the UK Theatre’s See It Safely guidelines, including:
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Regular monitoring of CO2 levels in the main theatre and fresh air ventilation.
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Enhanced cleaning measures, disinfection, and e-tickets.
The Hexagon reopened to full capacity in Autumn 2021 with sell out shows focusing on securing customer confidence. This culminated with a full run of Beauty and the Beast panto, 50 performances, no cancellations and over 30,000 tickets sold.
We launched a new digital hub on WhatsOnReading.com for arts, culture and heritage organisations and practitioners offering cultural and community resources building on the successes of the Reading Culture Live. It gathers in one place funding opportunities, links to cultural networks and groups and strategic guidance to support organisations’ development in Reading.
Lessons learned
Effective communication throughout the pandemic to increase customer confidence was crucial in keeping the venues central to the community.
Reassuring customers the venues were safe meant re-opening as soon as possible in 2020 with the SITELINES show Behind Closed Doors at South Street, this was developed with ACE funding and was adapted to include social distancing in the audience. Other socially distant programme included On Track, Ivo Graham, Daniel Sloss and RPO Noisy Kids. This enabled the teams to stay focused and have continuity in event production when there was a great sense of uncertainty in the sector, maintaining the talent pool in the venues throughout the pandemic has enabled operational certainty when the full programme commenced.
What’sOnReading.com hosts over 150 local arts groups and venues, the site has been central in supporting these groups to reopen, providing a cohesive message on social channels and framing content online to build seasons and themes. The site now has over 570,000 users and over one million impressions PA. This means the site has fulfilled its aim of being the top google listed what’s on site in Reading.
Contact
Donna Pentelow, email: [email protected]