WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT CONTRACTS! (thread)

We are all keen to get performances happening, & small companies are some of the best equipped to react quickly to perf opportunities as they arise. We’ve often got work ready to go.
However, issue of contracting is a thorny one.

On whose side does high risk of cancellation now lie - the company or the programmer?

Normally artists pull out all the stops to make sure ‘the show must go on’. And if we don’t do the show, we won’t get the fee.

But risk of cancellation is now much higher. If any cast member gets a track n trace call, a performance might have to be pulled, despite time and money invested in rehearsals.

Venues/festivals can be shut suddenly due to govt/international lockdowns - no fault on either side.

No one can get insurance right now to cover all eventualities - have heard many tales already of insurers failing to pay claims for COVID losses.

The whole way we approach cancellations needs reframing.

We need to re examine contracts to make sure risk is spread more evenly. Artists are already shouldering huge risks - creatively, financially, in terms of time invested speculatively.

How are we negotiating this? Anyone got any good examples/protocols?

Ultimately, people won’t/can't make shows if there is a risk they will incur huge losses.

Could ACE stand in as a temporary ‘cancellation insurer’, underwriting the risk for the time being and paying out in the event of COVID cancellations?

@upswingaerial @Mimbre_Acrobats @untheatre @EEALondon @nutkhutuk @feveredsleep @SillyBureau @MotionhouseDT @MetroBulotDodo @OckhamsRazorUK @Stopgapdance @stanscafe @GDIFestival