EC PAPERS NOVEMBER 2017

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Liberating Arts the programme. As a result several participants withdrew from the programme in frustration at the cavalier way they were informed after the decision had been made… and interestingly it was the GFTU they blamed not Dr Hillman. Dr Hillman also sent emails to the academic participants suggesting the GFTU would now pay fees and expenses because the event had been changed. No such agreement had been made and this cost us nearly £1000 in extra fees and transport costs, which we were previously not expecting to pay.

Conclusions :

Despite the success of the 1-day Liberating Arts event, it is now clear that our aspirations and expectations for a 3-day Liberating Arts festival in 2017 were over-optimistic. The Corbyn phenomenon, Momentum, The World Transformed, all contributed to an enthusiasm that underplayed the risks and over played the possibilities.

In hindsight we can now see that the main factors that limited ticket sales for the 3-day event were:

(i) Location . Exeter is simply too far away from London, The Midlands and the Northern industrial cities where most of a trade union audience are based. From the beginning we knew this would be a factor limiting sales but not that it would be such a decisive factor. (ii) Cost. The £69 standard ticket price was not unreasonable for what was on offer but when you add in the costs of getting to Exeter and hotel accommodation you are looking at £250 per person for the whole weekend. Again we knew this would be a factor that would limit ticket sales but not that it would completely strangle them off. 8 (iii) Format . It turns out that the core market of trade union officials found it difficult to get their heads round what Liberating Arts was. Is it a festival? Is it a conference? Is it for academics or for activists or for trade unionists? Is it performances or discussions? And so on. Some did recognise that the

There are over 6 million trade union members in the UK. The maximum the venue could 8 hold was 200. It seemed reasonable to imagine that we could sell 150 tickets and 50 to trade union delegates. 10 Producer’s Report 06/11/2017