Arts Alive in Shropshire and Herefordshire has been awarded £180,000 from the BFI National Lottery Audience Projects Fund.
The Rural Touring Scheme will appoint two new part time roles, Audience Outreach and Digital Marketing, to engage new audiences in specific areas across Shropshire and Herefordshire through new and innovative marketing approaches.
Arts Alive partners with people in rural communities to organise over 1,000 high quality events each year, including cinema, live music, theatre, dance, and storytelling shows in village halls and community centres to ensure that affordable arts and film is available to every person in Shropshire and Herefordshire.
The BFI National Lottery Audience Projects Fund will see nearly £6.5m will support ambitious, UK and international film and broader screen activity of national scale. It comprises a combination of long-term funding over three years, through to support for short-term projects, all of which meet the fund’s objectives of growing new audiences and engaging audiences who are representative of the UK population.
Ben Luxford, BFI’s Head of UK Audiences, said: “As we kick off our new BFI National Lottery strategy, we’re proud to support organisations to focus on the necessity of growing new audiences, to celebrate and champion fantastic screen culture and enrich communities across the UK. Our National Lottery funding is for public benefit, so we are working with projects which have demonstrated a strong commitment to reaching and welcoming audiences who are currently underserved by their activities.”
