In May 2013, as part of PHF’s 25th anniversary gifts, we announced the Paul Hamlyn Club Awards, totalling £2.5 million, to be shared among five performing arts venues across the UK. Each organisation was awarded £500,000 over five years to allow them to make significant progress in their work to attract and build relationships with audiences from groups experiencing disadvantage within their local communities. These awards reflected the values and aspirations of the Foundation’s programme set up at the Royal Opera House, which offered subsidised tickets to first-time audiences and aimed to encourage their continued involvement.
The organisations chosen for these anniversary gifts are listed below:
- Citizens Theatre, Glasgow
- Hall for Cornwall, Truro
- Opera North, Leeds
- Liverpool Philharmonic
- Sherman Theatre, Cardiff
The Paul Hamlyn Clubs aimed to:
- Diversify, engage and secure, in sustainable ways, new audiences for high-quality art performances in established venues – enabling people and communities experiencing disadvantage, who would not otherwise do so, to experience the very best of the performing arts on offer locally, creating a sense of occasion and excitement.
- Support bold initiatives that take a longer-term view on how to build lasting links with local people and capitalise on first or infrequent experiences of the performing arts to encourage return visits, deeper engagement and a sense of ownership.
- Help performing arts organisations to work closely and innovatively with a variety of community partners to grow targeted audience development programmes that are people-centred and relevant to their local context.
To learn how each project progressed over five years and met these aims, read Paul Hamlyn Clubs 2013-18: An Independent Evaluation.