Getting recreation and leisure up and running again.

A lot of money to be honest. I had 16 shows booked and cancelled with the most expensive one being given £120. Plus all the money on restaurants as usually eat before a show.
My holiday was cancelled which was about £1500 and I've not really been shopping so no impulse buys and hardly any clothes as there is nowhere to go to wear them.
All together a few thousand pounds but I'd rather have no money and be happy than lots of money and be living through Covid.

I've saved nothing, in fact I now have less money - previously my salary just about covered the bills and the overtime paid for theatre, concerts etc. Now there's no overtime and a 20% paycut so am struggling with the bills let alone anything else!

It’s worth looking into the pre-pay debit cards. A lot have contactless now, I have one as a backup card. They all have slightly different rules but it’s an option. I don’t think the theatres will go truly contactless though, but who knows!

Is contactless essential, Kim_Bahorel, or could you get by with a chip and pin card? If the latter, what about a Splash card.

It's a bit complicated to begin with, but nothing insurmountable. There are no credit checks and, unlike the Post Office card, you don't need a passport or driving licence, though I think you do need to be on the electoral roll.

The fees could be lower, so it's probably best if used sparingly, but if it stops you from becoming financially excluded, it may be worth investigating further. Even if theatres go completely cashless, you should be able to book tickets online, and probably in person once BOs reopen in due course.

www.splashplastic.com

BTW, I have no connection with Splash, just a TB friend trying to help. 🙂

Great news about the National Lottery scheme. Yes it's far too late for a lot of theatres but it's also a massive step forward!

Does that mean it's essentially sponsorship, coming out of NL's profits (as opposed to their regular fund for good causes)?

Baz has just tweeted there's going to be a huge West End announcement at the end of tonight's BGT. Intriguing.

At risk of being a pedant - this is part of (or a continuation of) a pre-COVID campaign to encourage people to consider a career in tech.

There are equivalent posters for people currently in non-arts professions who are also supposed to be thinking of a career change, suggesting their next job could be in 'cyber'. 

I'm not happy with the lack of support for the arts and those who work in it, and without context and in the current climate, that advert looks bad, but it's hardly a secret that not every trained dancer can keep dancing until it's time for them to draw their state pension. So I'm afraid my 'rage' is for people like Caitlin who really should know better than to share something that's likely to enrage without a fact check, or at least a bit of context.

Digging up old information and posting it out of context to create outrage has been going on for years. You'd think that by now people would be familiar enough with the Internet not to fall for it every time.

It seems that it also forms part of a new campaign, but still just one part of it, and while it could be argued that the people in charge of this campaign should have been more sensitive to the current mood, this is an interesting episode in confirmation bias and how easy it is to manipulate how someone reacts to something depending on how it's framed. 

I hate feeling like I have to defend the government, because they really are a bunch of terrible people who do more than enough terrible things so there's no need to spin or invent new stuff to get angry about.

Just going through the full list of recipients of grants from the Covid Recovery Fund, as published today.

Slightly confused and concerned how money has been allocated, details of which are not confirmed. I know they can't please everyone but there seems to be a number of companies on there who predominantly trade in bars etc whilst Arts specific organisations are missing.
One such example, a notorious gay nightclub in Manchester (Cruz 101) has received £250,000, whilst Royal Exchange Theatre has received nothing.
Another Manchester centric example of concern here is Gorilla the music venue receiving £255,500 and it's parent company, MissionMars received £1,000,000, whilst tiny charity Hope Mill received nothing.

More rounds soon to be announced though, hoping the independent organisations don't slip through the net.