In this section we ask you to provide us with all the contact information that we need to manage your proposal. 

Please make sure that all the contact information provided is correct, particularly the phone number and email address. During the selection process we may contact you by either phone or email if we have questions about your proposal. Final confirmation of the outcome of your proposal will be sent to the email address you provide here. 

Please use the question on Access Requirements to let us know if there are other ways in which we should communicate with you.

This section asks for basic headline information about your project including the name of the project, a short description of the work and an outline of what artform or artforms you are working with.

The questions ask you to indicate only one main artform for your project, and you then have a chance to add any other artforms that are involved in the work. This information helps us to understand the range of work being proposed and to ensure the programme reflects a variety of artistic approaches. Please think carefully about what you choose to list as your main artform as this information will be used in our programme planning.

We ask whether your organisation is a National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) to help us determine eligibility for bursary support to attend in-person programme meetings. This has no bearing on the assessment of your proposal.

This section requests a variety of information that we use in monitoring the reach and diversity of our programme. 

The information provided feeds into our monitoring of what proportion of the proposals we receive and support are led by artists who identify as being from underrepresented groups, including artists who identify as being from the Global Majority or as Black, artists who identify as Deaf, Disabled or Neurodivergent, artists who identify as being from working class or lower socio-economic communities, and artists who identify as LGBTQIA+.

As well as being used for statistical monitoring the information provided in this section is also used to inform our decision-making process, helping us to ensure that our programme is balanced in terms of both artform and representation.

You will be asked a series of questions about whether your project is led by artists who identify as being part of one or more of these groups. How you answer will depend on how your project is structured:

• An individual artist: You should complete these questions for yourself as an individual. If you answer ‘yes’ to any of the questions we will consider our criteria to have been met. 
• A collaborative project or ensemble: We will consider our criteria to have been met if over 50% of the core creative team identify as being from one or more of the groups listed above. The core creative team includes roles such as writer, director, choreographer, designer or other lead artist.
• A company or organisation: We will consider our criteria to have been met if at least 75% of your board of directors and senior management team identify as being from one or more of the groups listed above.

Within our Global Majority target, we also specifically monitor the representation of Black artists. If you answered yes to the Global Majority question you will be asked a follow-up question about whether your project is led by artists who identify as Black.

Please refer to the additional information below for more details on how we define diverse-led work.

These questions allow you to indicate whether you would like to receive creation funding from Without Walls to complete your project. 

If you require creation funding from Without Walls then please answer ‘yes’ to the first question. You should then use the second question to indicate how much funding you are requesting from Without Walls. This number should represent the total funding request that you are making to Without Walls. 

If you answer ‘No’ or enter the amount requested as ‘£0’ then we will take this as confirmation that you do not require any funding from Without Walls, and that you are only requesting an offer of tour dates from us. If it later emerges that you do require funding from Without Walls then your proposal may be considered as ineligible for support. 

Access

Without Walls understands that access is person-centred and fluid. We encourage applicants to include all necessary access costs for the creation and touring of their work in their budget request. As a guide, access costs within your creation budget can cover: BSL interpretation, taxi fund if accessible transport is unavailable, access to mental health support and an access worker or PA in the rehearsal room. This is not an exhaustive list.

If you or any member of your creative team have personal access requirements, such as a support worker, these costs can be requested separately and sit outside of the £60,000 limit. Equally, any costs associated with integrating access provisions for audiences, such as touch tour training or audio description, also sit outside the £60,000 limit.

We recognise that Access to Work support, where available, can help cover some access-related costs. However, please do not let uncertainty around Access to Work limit what you include in your budget request to Without Walls. We want to ensure that access costs are not a barrier to making or touring your work.

This is where you should provide a full description of your project. Key points that you might wish to cover include: 

• The theme, subject or story that you are exploring 
• How that will be expressed through the form or narrative of the work 
• How you would anticipate the experience to look, sound and feel for the people watching or engaging with it 
• What reaction you would like from audiences – what would you like them to think or feel 
• Who you think the ideal audience for the work is 

You will also be asked to provide some information about your organisation and the artists and collaborators you are working with. This is particularly useful for helping us learn more about artists or companies that may be new to creating and presenting outdoor work. When talking about your team and collaborators you might want to talk about: 

• Why you’re keen to work with them 
• The skills, vision and experience that they bring to your team 
• Their track record in working on outdoor arts, either individually or collectively 
• Any notable credits or achievements that they have from previous projects

Please note that if your proposal names specific partner organisations or lead creative collaborators outside of your own organisation whose involvement is integral to the project, you will need to include a letter of support or agreement from each of them confirming their involvement. This should be attached in Section 8. Applications that name key collaborators outside of your own organisation without this confirmation may not be taken forward.

Access provision

Without Walls expects all supported work to include meaningful access provision for audiences. You will be asked to tell us one way in which you plan to embed access into your work. Please focus on one clear and specific approach rather than trying to cover too much, for example embedding audio description, integrating Visual Vernacular or BSL, or providing sensory packs. Please ensure the associated costs are included in your creation budget. 

Environmental sustainability

You will also be asked about your plans to improve the environmental sustainability of your production and reduce the potential impacts of creating and touring your work. We expect all supported projects to demonstrate responsible production and touring practice. Please tell us what you are doing beyond the baseline, and what innovations or approaches you are exploring.

The questions that we ask in Sections six and seven will be used as part of our budget planning for the programme and will determine how many projects we are able to support. Please try to be as clear and as accurate as possible with the information that you provide in this section. 

Use this section to upload your budget. We have provided a number of budgets as examples to help you understand what you might wish to include. Please note that these are to be used for guidance. Each project is unique and you should include all the costs you need to make your project happen.  

If you only wish to request an offer of tour dates from Without Walls, and are not seeking any funding from us, then please provide a budget outlining the costs that you expect to incur in completing the work up to the point of presentation and what your sources of income for this are. 

You will also be asked to indicate whether you are VAT registered, and to indicate what fees you intend to charge to present the work for one day, two days and three days. When calculating your performance fees, please do not include the following costs as these will be covered separately by the presenting festivals: travel to and from the festival (including mileage and public transport costs), transport for sets and equipment (including van hire), accommodation, or per diems.

Your presentation fee should be sufficient to cover all payments to your performers and crew for performance and travel days, along with any other overheads you will incur for each performance. Without Walls does not set specific payment rates, but we expect all fees to reflect current industry standards for fair pay. Your fees should also include a reasonable amount to allow your company to reinvest in the work, covering costs such as remounting, additional rehearsal time, and any maintenance required to keep the show touring in future seasons.

The first questions ask about the duration of your show and how many times a day you will be able to perform. For performance-based work, the expectation is that most shows will be between 20 and 45 minutes long and will be performed either two or three times each day, with a suitable break in between. For durational or installation-based work please provide an outline of how long the work can run for each day. 

It is important for us to know how many people are required to tour with the show. Please include all necessary cast and crew in this figure, as well as any access support workers that you might be employing and would need to tour with the team. Only include other staff (Directors, Producers, etc.) if their presence is essential for delivering every performance. 

You will also be asked to outline any technical or staging requirements that festivals will need to provide to present your show. We appreciate that you might not have full details at this stage. However, it is important for us to understand whether your show will require power connections, overnight security, and what your needs are likely to be with regards to lighting, sound and staging. 

The information you provide here will be used to produce cost estimates that will be used in our budgeting process, so it is important for us to have as much information as possible. 

It is also important for us to know whether any of your touring company members are likely to have any access requirements. 

If you have information about access requirements at this stage, then please provide them here. 

Please tell us about your rehearsal and development plans, as well as when you would expect the project to be ready for presentations. The co-commissioning festivals who will present the Without Walls programme in its first year take place between May and September. We also expect supported work to be available for touring to our Touring Network Partnership festivals in the future, subject to the show’s ongoing development and touring readiness. If there are any obligations that may limit your availability, it is important that we know.

This section can be used to provide additional promotional material or information that you might have available for your project, or to share examples of your previous work. This can include: 

• Recordings of rehearsals and/or research and development                                                       
• Concept drawings or design sketches for the work                                                           
• Touring Packs 
• Marketing Packs 
• Video trailers for the project, or for previous work
• Excerpts of any sound or music that you’ve already created 

Please include a small selection (no more than five images and one video) as we will be unable to share more with the selecting panel. 

You can also provide links to any social media channels that you use to promote your work. 

If your proposal names specific collaborators or partner organisations, you must also include a letter of support or agreement from each of them confirming their involvement in the project. This is a requirement rather than an optional addition, and applications that name collaborators without this confirmation may not be taken forward.

If you include links to file sharing sites such as We Transfer then please ensure that the file transfer links will remain active after the submission deadline to allow us sufficient time to download the materials you have shared. Please also indicate any passwords needed to access this content. We will contact you directly if we have any difficulty downloading the content you have shared. 

For your project to be considered by Without Walls, we need to share your proposal with our partners in the Artistic Directorate network. If you do not provide consent for this then we will be unable to consider your proposal. We also share proposals with collaborating partners to help publicise and promote your work to other potential supporters.