Funding: Introduction
If you want to put on a theatre production, one of the most important things to consider is funding. Putting on a production is no cheap feat, and singular productions can cost at least £500, often more than £1000, and even up to £22,000.
Producers and Directors should not be taking any funding money out of their own pockets, since that puts individual students directly in high financial risk if their production makes a loss. If productions make a profit, they are also not allowed to keep the profit as per the OUDS production company contract. Therefore, it is advised in general that no one should pay for any production expenses themselves.
Since no money can be taken out of anyone’s pockets, production companies need to source funding from external sources.
There are 2 main types of funding in Oxford provided to student theatre, click on the below to learn more:
Loans
A loan is typically a larger sum of money (up to a few hundred £) that needs to be returned to the funding body. This is offered by OUDS, along with college drama societies and other funding bodies.
Some funding bodies (including OUDS) may offer a pro rata loan. ‘Pro rata’ is simply a fancy way to describe the dividing of a whole amount into equal portions, based on the share of the whole amount.
In practical terms, that means funding bodies ask that repayments for the loan make up of:
1. Their original loan money back
2. The % they make up of your budget
For example: If Apple Productions has a budget of £1000, and OUDS gives a pro rata loan of £100, that £100 will make up 10% of Apple Productions’ total funding.
At the repayment stage, two things can happen:
- If Apple Productions makes a profit: OUDS will receive their original £100 + 10% of the profits.
- If Apple Productions makes a loss: OUDS would allow them to take away 10% of Apple Productions’ loss from their repayment, rather than demand all the money back. (i.e. OUDS will receive = their original £100 – 10% loss).
Loans can be especially important for production companies in their early stages. If your production company is preparing for its first production, you may not yet have any/enough cash from previous shows to cover upfront costs. A loan can therefore provide the necessary cash flow to fund expenses for these productions until revenue from ticket sales is received. As your production company puts on more productions and begins generating earnings, you can reinvest those profits into future productions, reducing your needs for loans over time.
Grants
A grant is typically a smaller sum of money (this can vary depending on the funding body, the level of involvement the college has in the production, and many more factors) that does not need to be returned to the funding body. This is offered by the Cameron Mackintosh Drama Fund (CMDF), along with many college JCRs/MCRs.
Grants are useful for productions of all scales, from the BT to the O’Reilly to the Playhouse. It can essentially act as income before your show performs and can be incredibly useful in lowering your breakeven %, reducing the pressure of having to fill a certain number of seats in the audience to prevent losses.
The biggest grant provider in Oxford student theatre is the CMDF, which provides (almost) guaranteed grants that are between 12%-15% of your production’s budget.
Additionally, most productions source grants from the JCRs of the colleges their cast/crew members are in. Typically, the process of getting a JCR grant is done through submitting a motion to the college JCR, getting the company members in that college to attend the JCR meeting where they will present the motion, and the college JCR will vote on whether to pass the motion and give out the grant. The easiest way to execute this is within your production to write a JCR motion template which you send to company members to fill in and send out, see an example here.
We understand that due to the increase in student theatre productions over the years, JCR grant funding has been increasingly more difficult to receive, with lower amounts being given out and higher rates of motions not being passed. If you are struggling with this in any way, please feel free to reach out to the OUDS treasurer or any other members of the committee and we will try our best to help you.
Funding Application
Different funding bodies can have different application processes and requirements, but typically they would require an initial funding application that consists of a funding bid and a later stage interview.
Often times an interview is designed to learn more about your production, clarify points on your bid, and to provide financial help and advice to your production. They are not designed to challenge you in any ways, so no need to prepare too much in advance.
When you are successful with your application, make sure to proactively follow up on the funding body to ensure that the money is transferred to your production company bank account. If it is a loan, make sure to double check the agreed return amount (especially for pro rata loans) after your production has wrapped up, and to return the loan on time.