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A practical guide to touring across Europe for UK performing artists and companies

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Tim Spooner, Assembly of Animals. Photo by Paul Blackemore

A simple, practical guide to support and empower UK-based individual artists and small companies working in theatre, dance and live art to continue to tour work across Europe.

From insurance and visas to copyright and cabotage, the guide offers a practical step-by-step overview guide, case studies and country-focused details to help navigate the post-Brexit touring landscape and will continue to be updated as the rules and regulations evolve.

Commissioned by Arts Council England through Artsadmin, LIFT and 1927, the guide was written by independent producers and consultants Nadine Patel and Ania Obolewicz and it is available to read and download in text, audio and Easy Read formats.

Who is the guide for?

  • UK-based individual artists, small companies and producers working in theatre, dance and live art.
  • European arts organisations, festivals and venues looking to programme UK artists and companies.

It is focused primarily on performing arts tours less than 3 months long.

In-depth details in country-focused guides

Alongside an overview of touring in Europe, the guide also contains in-depth details of 19 countries, including funding, VAT, tax and moving people, props and sets. These countries were chosen because they have the clearest track record of presenting and collaborating with UK performance artists. We hope to be able to expand these country guides over time.

Case studies

Three case studies outline different scenarios with artists and companies:

  • Forced Entertainment, a National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) touring to France, which has a combined group of freelancers and PAYE employees and will be performing different shows with different freight considerations.
  • Sonia Hughes, an independent artist touring to the Netherlands with two other freelancers.
  • Tim Spooner, a small-scale, freelance artist touring to multiple countries including Slovenia, Poland and Germany.

Read the guide in text format on Google Docs

Download the Easy Read of the overview of European touring guide

Listen to an audio recording of the European touring guide overview read by case study artist Sonia Hughes

Please let us know if you would like a country guide or case study in another format: access@artsadmin.co.uk