21 Years of Puppets for All
In today’s blog we are celebrating our wonderful Puppets for All scheme, which started 21 years ago!
We are really proud of our flagship access scheme, offering tickets completely free of charge to those who might otherwise miss out. We appreciate that the cost of tickets just isn’t feasible for everyone, so we work very hard to make sure that our shows are accessible to all, regardless of financial constraints.
“We have really enjoyed Puppets for All… I am very grateful that you have this wonderful and generous program for those like us that otherwise can’t afford to go to the shows. I absolutely love your theatre and the shows you do, thank you for the magic!”
Puppets For All Participant
When we launched the scheme it was generously funded by the Harold Hyman Wingate Foundation – and with their support we were able to offer nearly 5,000 tickets in the first two years.
In the early days, we focused on promoting the scheme to local schools, organisations, and charities in Islington and surrounding boroughs that worked with children or families facing various barriers. We invited schools to bring their classes, and organisations received a termly newsletter detailing upcoming offers for shows, classes and holiday clubs. They could then either arrange group visits or disseminate the information to their users. We distributed coded and individually numbered (hand-written!) “vouchers” to organisations, which they could then provide to their users as a form of ticket.
“We are very grateful to be able to access this scheme, it significantly improves our lives and my children’s development. We would not be able to access the theatre without Puppets for All.”
Puppets For All Participant
Over the years we have been generously sponsored by a range of wonderful Trusts, Foundations and individuals to keep the scheme going – fast forward to 2024 and we gave out over 5,000 tickets, double our initial offering and representing nearly 10% of our total audiences!
Over the next year we aim to:
- Provide over 1,000 free tickets to families on state benefits.
- Provide every class from our 8 partner schools at minimum one show per year (which is 3,840 free tickets for pupils of the partner schools)
- Provide one 11by11 school performance during each show run (which is 480 free tickets to school pupils in Islington).
- Provide 6 bursary places to fun-days, running over 3 days, during 5 holidays (which is free places for 30 children and their families across the year)
What’s next?
Our list of eligible families is now well over 1,000 – far more than we can accommodate through our current resources, and recent figures suggest that school trips will decline by over 50% over the next year due to lack of resources. As we operate in an increasingly challenging fundraising environment, we are struggling to raise the funds we need to sustain this level of availability for the scheme, so this Christmas we are going to be raising funds though The Big Give Christmas Challenge – where all donations are matched. Keep an eye on our social media for details of the campaign…
Help us to ignite the imaginations of the youngest minds! We believe that everyone should have access to theatre and through our PFA scheme we offer children and their families, who would otherwise not be able to afford to attend, the opportunity to enjoy the magic of puppetry!
“I just wanted to say thank you so much for the opportunity! I think that it’s brilliant that you offer tickets to those who can’t afford it! I am financially struggling and hate to see it affect my son’s ability to be included. We enjoyed the show so much, and haven’t stopped singing ‘yellow yellow…”
Puppets For All Participant