Culture Recovery Fund
Rob Reading & Gav Pell
Directors, Pirate Crew
Amazing News!
We at Pirate Crew are excited and humbled to announce that we are one of the proud beneficiaries of the Government’s Culture Recovery Fund Round 2. We are among more than 2700 recipients to benefit from the latest round of awards from the £1.57 billion fund.
The last year has been a tremendous and emotional challenge for everyone, with Arts & Culture being one of the worst hit sectors. We were the first to be closed down and will probably be the last to return in full, if indeed we ever will. Fingers crossed that by 2022 we would have put most of this nightmare behind us and be back to doing what we love.
The cost of the pandemic is varied, and everyone has their own tale to tell with problems including:
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Some venues and supply companies have gone bust, with many more on the brink.
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People without work and worrying for the future are having mental health issues
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Workshops are seeing increasing cost and decreasing availability of building materials
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Technological innovation has been paused.
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Companies have been forced to downsize premises and staff levels, meaning reduced output
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Cost snd implementation of Covid Safe practices and equipment causing havoc with event feasibility
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The extreme risk of producing any event without the protection of insurance in case of lockdown.
……..the list goes on.
Pirate Crew is all about people. The problem we recognise is simple and also extremely problematic for the industry. Theatre and events have potentially lost thousands of skilled personnel who have taken roles in other industries, with many not planning to return. While this creates an advantage for any who can take the risk to commit themselves to the industry, a hole has been blown wide open in terms of skills, experience, training and certification.
The Arts Council has kindly awarded us £497,743 to help prepare our transition to this new world and get back to work. This money will help to ensure that the right people with the right skills are available to which ever project needs them. The specific proposed spending will confirm that we can continue to be a technical staff solution to depend on.
We bare the weight of responsibility of spending public money wisely, and for the good of others. Our intentions to support our staff and freelancers with training and skills has been recognised by the Arts Council as a step in the right direction. The grant bestowed to us will be invested back into the industry and to our loyal crew.
We have been lucky enough to support some projects throughout the year (including the upcoming Andrew Lloyd Webbers ‘Cinderella’) and be in the frontline of working and planning in covid conditions. As well as the Arts Council and DCMS, we want to give a firm thank you to the small number of crew that have been so absolutely amazing for us over the past year, to all Pirates wherever you are and to all who support us.
A huge thanks to Arts Council England and UK Government Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) for your contribution to the Arts snd it’s supply chain.
We will be ready to return…
