CASE STUDY BARN THEATRE
ADAPTING TO LOCKDOWN LIFE
How adapting to live streaming saved one charity theatre project from closure
W hen the coronavirus stop across the globe. And even with the most recent guidelines, it looks as though most arts venue restrictions will stay in place for some time. For the Barn Theatre in Cirencester, this potential catastrophe presented an opportunity to reinvent itself thanks to live streaming. “We are both a registered charity and a working, 200-seat theatre,” says artistic director, Iwan Lewis. “Before the lockdown, we regularly distributed thousands of tickets to disadvantaged families and older people, homeless children, as well as other support groups, to allow those in need to enjoy a night out for free.” When, like all other theatres, lockdown was announced in spring, virtually all live cultural life came to a the Barn had to close its doors to the public, Lewis and his team were seriously worried. “As an unsubsidised charity, we faced the prospect of a substantial loss of revenue fromticket sales, whichwas a hammer blowtoour core business.We were facing permanent closure.” To help save the theatre, and ensure his team could keep working to aid more people for the future, Lewis decided to try something totally new: live streaming. Just weeks after lockdown, he’d transformed the Barn Theatre into a mini television studio. The teamalso announced the creation of an online campaign to save the theatre and a live streaming service, called Behind the Barn Door, to promote its work via social media.
ABOVE Barn Theatre’s Tweedy’s Lost and Found show has featured celebrities such as Hugh Bonneville and Helena Bonham Carter
Other content includes Disco Fitness , Live from the Clinic with Dr Dawn Harper from Embarrassing Bodies , and Cool Conversations with mountaineer Kenton Cool, who has climbed Everest 14 times. There’s even a children’s story time, and a Q&A sessionwith best-selling author, MichaelMorpurgo. Thoughall content is free, viewers are encouraged to donate to the Save the Barn campaign to keep the theatre afloat. “We have thought for a while that the future is pushing towards live broadcast, and we hope to continue our digital offering long after the lockdown is lifted,” Lewis says. “We wanted to do these live broadcasts to try and keep the charity alive, but are continually surprised at the success this project has achieved.” He concludes: “Thanks to live streaming, our work is now watched by thousands every time we run a performance – many more than the 200 guests we would normally have capacity for. We never would have imagined that our content from Cirencester would be watched by people all around the globe.”
The theatre-come-studiocurrently uses Panasonic Lumix mirrorless cameras as main cameras, with special guests joining via Zoom. The production hub, which was built to deliver full-featured live programming with minimal crew, consists of a Blackmagic Atem 2 M/E Production Studio 4K switcher with an Atem hardware control panel. It also relies on Hyperdeck recorders and Ultrastudio I/O. To reach their online audience, the programme content is streamed using Teradek encoders via the Restream platform. With a mix of entertainment, community news, music and children’s content, Behind the Barn Door has been immensely popular. Its Tweedy’s Lost and Found show, which attracted more than 100,000 online viewers, has featured celebrities such as film and TV legends Hugh Bonneville and Helena Bonham Carter, and Daisy May Cooper of the Bafta award-winning This Country TV show. There’s also a concert series, The Barn Presents , which features all-star line-ups of West End and Broadway performers.
“The future is pushing towards live broadcast”
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SUMMER 2020 PRO MOVIEMAKER
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