Updated 12 June

Whilst the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic has made us adapt to a new way of working, Without Walls and its partners have remained committed to the creation of outdoor work and bringing high-quality arts experiences to people across the UK.

We are continuing to support the artists that we scheduled to tour this summer and working with them to explore how work can be adapted for future touring with social distancing in place, whether in the latter half of 2020 or the summer of 2021. We are supporting projects this year through our Blueprint R&D programme. More about this work will be revealed in the very near future.

Our partners have continued to engage their communities digitally, and as social distancing measures loosen, are in regular contact with their local authorities to plan how outdoor activity might begin in a social distancing context

We are maintaining a list of festival partners ácitivity in this current climate which can be found here.

The XTRAX management team are back working full time to ensure we are there to support the in these unprecedented times.

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Updated 24 April

Please read below an important update regarding XTRAX and its team.

Due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic and the cancellation or postponement of many outdoor events and festivals in the UK and internationally, some of the Without Walls management staff will be on temporary furlough leave during April and May.

For more information on staff availability visit the XTRAX website.

If you have a general inquiry outside of these dates then please contact Without Walls at info@withoutwalls.uk.com and someone will reply to you.

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Published 09 April

The Coronavirus pandemic has presented multiple challenges to the development and delivery of Without Walls’ planned activity for the coming season.

Many of our festival partners have had to cancel or postpone their events. A list of what is known to date can be found here.

Without Walls is liaising with all the artists who were scheduled to present new work for 2020 to explore whether their projects can still be presented this year, or in some cases whether they may instead premiere in 2021. We hope to be able to share more information about the ambitious programme of work that is in development in the coming weeks.  We are committed to continuing the development of exciting outdoor work that will thrill, provoke and entertain audiences across the country in the months and years to come.

We are in regular contact with all the Without Walls festivals and the Board and we are organising regular meetings to support our partners where we can.

In the meantime, this period of home working has enabled us to update some of the resources on our website as well as share the learning from our behind-the-scenes strategic projects.

Arts Council England and Outdoor Arts UK have announced several funds that may be able to support artists, festivals, freelancers and other members of the outdoor arts community; visit the Arts Council and Outdoor Arts UK websites to find out more.

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Without Walls: A Public Statement on Cornoavirus: Published: 19 March 2020

Without Walls is monitoring the situation regarding the national and international spread of Coronavirus and the impact this will have on the artists, festivals and other partners with whom we work.

While we remain committed to supporting the development and touring of projects for presentation in 2020, coronavirus will present a variety of risks to the financial and practical viability of some of these projects, and their presentation at Without Walls festivals throughout 2020.

Many of those we work with are small companies, independent artists and freelancers, and are therefore vulnerable in this situation, which threatens the sustainability of the outdoor arts sector. We are liaising with all our festival partners and supported artists to plan for how we can offer help, revising plans where necessary. Without Walls will honour all the commission agreements made, even if the events are cancelled or project plans are disrupted, and we are working with our festival partners on strategies to address the loss of earnings in performance fees that our supported artists would face if Without Walls festivals are cancelled.

In the coming weeks, we will be consulting with artists and event organisers as well as funders and stakeholders, to explore how to coordinate or deliver services to support the sector.

We are encouraged by Arts Council England’s (ACE) recent announcement of support measures for artists and organisations who are affected by the disruption. Over the coming weeks, we will liaise with ACE and other outdoor arts practitioners to consider how ACE’s support measures and other government financial support might apply to artists and event organisers in the outdoor arts community.

This is clearly an unprecedented crisis with far-reaching impacts. Without Walls will harness the commitment, skill and resources of its many partners to explore creative ways of addressing these challenges and sharing information and resources with the wider sector.

Any further updates will be posted on this page. We have gathered several links to relevant websites and information that may be helpful to other artists, festivals or other stakeholders working in the outdoor arts and festival sector:

Visit:

The management team at XTRAX are transferring to home working. The best way to contact XTRAX staff is via email. If you have specific questions or comments please share it with us on info@xtrax.org.uk

You can find contact details for all our staff here.

We will also share the latest information on our social media channels, please follow us at:

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