Eastbourne's Congress Theatre turns red in solidarity

The Congress Theatre in Eastbourne turned red in solidarity with hundreds of other venues across the UK which have been devastated by the pandemic.
Congress Theatre EastbourneCongress Theatre Eastbourne
Congress Theatre Eastbourne

Robert Watson, technical director with Sussex Events LTD based near Hailsham, worked with technicians from the Congress Theatre to deliver an important statement from 7.30-9.30pm on Wednesday, September 30 – as part of the nationwide #wemakeevents campaign.

Robert said the aim was to highlight “the forgotten industry.”

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“The event went really well and we had a great attendance of theatre workers, local freelancers and company owners who have all been affected by the current situation,” he said.

Robert added: “We are an events company and we provide support at events across the Sussex area and into London. We do some conference work, but the majority of our work is theatre work and festival work. We will cover about five or six medium-scale festivals a year, but our bread and butter are a lot of the amdram shows. We do Brighton panto, Eastbourne panto, Hastings panto.

“And we haven’t done anything since March pretty much. A friend of ours did a little festival in August, and that was literally the only job we have done.

“We have been going for eight and a half years, and so fortunately we have built up some reserves. But we are eating into those quite a bit. There is just nothing happening really.”

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So he was delighted to be joining the #wemakeevents campaign which also saw demonstrations in Parliament Square.

“It is just to raise awareness of what is going on. We have been forgotten. They announced last week that they would try to save us by paying a third of our wages but only if you have got a viable job, and at the moment we have not got a viable job because the government won’t allow us to open.”

What difference the campaign will make, Robert is unsure: “Lighting things red is just trying to get the message across and some awareness of social media pictures does help a little bit, but I don’t think we are able to change anything really. But it is a statement of solidarity between all of us.”

Robert is working on the basis that next year from April the company will get probably around a quarter of its normal work: “Stuff like conferences which are usually a big part of our winter are going online, and whether companies decide that that is the best way to do it going forward is the big issue.”

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But there is a degree of hope: “We are respected across the county because we do the work and we always do it with a degree of light-heartedness, and somehow we have managed to keep that light-heartedness going. We will get through this, but it is going to be tough.”

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