Winners' Words
29/10/10
As you may have noticed, we’ve launched Ideas Fund Edinburgh again – there are two lots of £10,000 up for grabs to get your show up next year. We asked last year’s winners what the fund did for them…
Ross MacKay’s children’s theatre company Tortoise in a Nutshell took The Last Miner to Edinburgh Fringe this year after winning £20,000 in funding. Through puppetry and enchanting set design, the show told the story of a lonely miner...
It was extremely important to take our show to Edinburgh as it raised our profile among promoters and venues in a very short period of time. It generated a large amount of press and buzz, which could be used to promote a tour in the future. Edinburgh is also an international platform and gave us exposure to promoters who wouldn't have otherwise come to the show. As a direct result, it is very likely our show will tour to France and we have had contact with promoters from Switzerland, Japan and Saudi Arabia.
Without the fund, we simply wouldn't have been able to put on the show as finances are so restricted when you’re just starting out. The programme of mentorship has progressed our company in every imaginable way and allowed us to fulfill our ambitions for the project, as we had the experience of our mentors backing up our grand ideas.
Steven Atkinson of HighTide (company members pictured above) won £10,000 for Lidless, which won rave reviews and a Fringe First…
Edinburgh is one of the world's best marketplaces, where you can be confident that sizable audiences and leading critics can see your work. It's hugely competitive, but in a context where everybody is trying to stand out from the crowd, winning an Ideas Fund award is another marker of quality.
The Ideas Fund award enabled HighTide Festival Theatre to produce a bespoke show designed for 36 people at a time. Lidless was cast with professional actors who were paid equity rates, we had a high-end set, and we're committed to low ticket prices, so quite simply the production could not have been created without IdeasTap’s investment. Being able to realise the show as we intended led to great reviews and awards, which in turn have helped us to bring Lidless to the West End next spring, so IdeasTap played a pivotal role in enabling this bigger vision.
