Arcola Theatre work with production companies to help them reduce their environmental impact without compromising artistic vision and here are our Top Ten Tips to producing a low impact theatre production.

There are three main areas where you can reduce your production’s environmental footprint: physical production, company activity and audience behaviour.

Physical

1. Re-use – decisions you make at the start of production will have a big impact on waste at the end. Can the materials be re-used, or at least recycled? – Careful handling and fitting of the set contributes its ease of re-use.www.scenerysalvage.com will collect your set & they also sell salvaged items – worth a look if you need cheap doors, furniture, casters, electrical equipment etc. Aim to avoid landfill as nothing is ever really ‘thrown away’.

2. Purchasing – key are timber and paint (see below) but the Mayors Green Procurement Code has useful resources for ensuring minimal environmental impact if buying new items: www.greenprocurementcode.co.uk

3. Timber – try to source timber that is recycled or, if new, FSC certified. Try Leaside Wood Recycling Project for cheap recycled timber – www.lwrp.org.uk

4. Paint – avoid harmful airborne chemicals called volatile organic compounds (VOCs) used in ordinary paint, a big contributor to climate change, and many of the chemicals are also highly toxic and linked with health problems such as respiratory disease, asthma, dizziness, headaches, nausea, fatigue, skin disorders, eye irritation, liver and kidney damage and cancer: www.sustainablebuild.co.uk/NonToxicPaint.html

5. Lighting – consider employing innovative low energy lighting technologies / setting an energy cap as per Arcola production of Living Unknown Soldier (2008). Visit Arcola Energy site for a wealth of information including kit lists: www.arcolaenergy.com/contribute/category/green-theatre/low-energy-lighting/
Switch the rig on as near to the performance as possible and promptly turn it off at the end of a performance. Also see White Light’s Green Guide to Lighting – www.whitelight.ltd.uk/greenguide

6. Recycling – Try to find a reuse for materials wherever possible, or implement recycling schemes for sets and props, batteries, lamps and costumes. Use www.freecycle.org to donate costumes, props etc. (also see point 1)

Company

7. Travel – encourage company members to cycle or use public transport. Plan meetings/rehearsals to minimize travel requirements where possible.

8. Electricity use – turn off lights when not in use / when vacating rehearsal space.

9. Waste – use the theatre recycling and composting facilities. Where appropriate report waste to a member of the Arcola Sustainability team who will support in its sustainable disposal.

Audience

10. Audience travel – publicise your sustainability efforts and encourage green travel methods on marketing materials. Market to, and engage, local audiences.

What do you think about our Top Ten Tips? Would you add or change anything? Let us know!

Add your comments…

For information on greening an event, check out Sustainable Event Management: A Practical Guide by Meegan Jones. It is an indispensable one-stop guide for event and facility organizers, managers and professionals, and event management students who need a powerful, easy to use collection of tools to deliver events sustainably. It covers a wide range of events and even features Arcola in the book.

Here is how it went:

From: London, South East UK
To: Groningen, North Netherlands
Distance: 500km approx
When: August 2009.
Via: Eurostar to Brussels then Intercity.
Alternative: Train to a London airport, flight to Amsterdam, train to Groningen

Summary: Train takes about twice as long (all day), costs about the same or less (EUR107 first class eachway) but is more pleasant and productive.

Details: The conclusion of my experiment is that it is fully possible to productively travel across Europe on business by train but that it requires careful planning and if planning for someone else very clear instructions – train systems are optimised for national rather than international travellers and are less accomodating of ignorance than airports.

Some notes:
1. The subtle changes in the way that platforms are arranged and information presented (particularly related to changes in schedules) across Europe make it difficult for unfamiliar travellers to quickly identify which train to take.

2. A simple google map of the route with changes marked and key city names highlighted makes understanding staff, friendly passengers and announcements much easier (google maps application for Blackberry is great)

3. The ability to use of a first class Eurostar ticket to travel first class on any (non-thalys) train makes an incredible difference – first class is quiet and comfortable and not needing to purchase individual tickets eliminates much hassle.

4. Travelling by train requires some thinking and planning of the route as well as the destination. Unlike plane travel which is point to point, train travel remains more like the ‘real’ travelling we used to do. This is the ‘price’ paid for avoiding all of the horrible waiting, queues, metal detectors and fear found in airports.

5. Interesting to note that we are willing to knowingly wait hours, find and pay for transfers and taxis in airports but get impatient in train stations.

6. Ability to remain in phone contact on trains is a great benefit. Lack of internet on many trains (like planes) is unfortunate but likely to be quickly remedied through proliferation of internet connected phones -
resulting in almost uninterupted business productivity throughout the journey (unlike on planes).

Specific to Noorderzon:
From Groningen to Rotterdam takes 3 hours even with perfect connections. Rotterdam to Brussels is 1h45 and the connection v.tight (I missed it and had to wait one hour) thus the non-eurostar part of the journey is a minimum of 5 hours and probably 6 hours (everyone I spoke to the night before it was 4 hours)

Post image is of the freak storm which caused the closing of the first night of the Festival (I did my presentation in the pub)… an example of the imact of climate change on arts?

Arcola does not do much touring nationally or internationally, however we do have a sister theatre in Istanbul and we have plans to increase our own touring and our staging of international shows soon, so we are starting to think hard about this matter.

First thoughts…

Why are we touring:
1. Is a tour genuinely beneficial e.g. for artistic, cultural, financial reasons
2. Can similar outcomes be achieved in a lower carbon manner e.g. by a different artistic approach, alternative cultural intervention or different business model
3. Are we going to the otherside of the world simply because we met a producer from there – can we not meet someone closer?

How we are touring:
1. Can the miles involved in the tour be reduced e.g. through focus on a single or more proximate region (Europe rather than Australsia), or by programming a local rather than international company
2. Can the size of the touring party be reduced e.g. through local partnerships, revised set/technical, multi-tasking company members
3. Can the negative impact of the tour be reduced e.g. through use of trains rather than planes and by planning the intinerary to minimise distance between consecutive stops
4. Can the positive impact of the tour be increased e.g. by staying longer or adding engagement activities

Others looking at this:
British Council
Arts Admin

Some useful links:
http://www.loco2travel.com/

Professional Fundraising online www.professionalfundraisingblogs.co.uk/content.php?id=44

See the play for yourself at www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZSXHSA7vFI

Press also at www.arcolaenergy.com/press.html

See: www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/biodiversity/news/arcola_bio_fooled_13912.html

The 10 minute street performance addresses the complex issues surrounding the use of biofuels.

The playful but uncompromising piece demonstrates that biofuels are a false solution to climate change.

In the performance we meet:

• A politician looking for a quick fix to climate change.
• A business man looking for easy money. 
• A farmer who will pay the price for their misguided actions.

Taking to the streets
Arcola will be performing their street theatre around London and also in Brighton during the summer.

Director: Phil Ormrod
Cast: Jed Hancock-Brainerd, Daniel Millar and Sean McConaghey

Performance dates:

• 2-3 Aug: Innocent Village Fete, Regents Park
• 8 Aug: Barge – Paddington, Camden
• 9 Aug: Islington Green
• 15 Aug: Canary Wharf
• 16 Aug: Brighton beach
• 22 Aug: Soho Square
• 23 Aug: Leicester Square
• 29 Aug: Golden Square
• 30 Aug: Sloane Square
• 5 Sept: Victoria Embankment Gardens
• 6 Sept: Soho GardensArcola Theatre

Spend some time on the website - there is a huge amount of relevant information. Much of the information requested by the arts sector is already there…

London’s Arcola Theatre, renowned for having the world’s first fuel cell powered studio, has taken a brave new step in delivering low energy lighting and hydrogen fuel cell power for this year’s Latitude Festival.

Working with regular partners White Light, Selecon, ETC and PixelRange, Arcola Theatre provided lighting for the entire Theatre Arena using a mixture of LED and low power tungsten technologies; cutting power consumption by over 70%.

A 5kW Gencore fuel cell, supplied by London Hydrogen Partnership in association with Logan Energy, powered the entire lighting rig, with hydrogen provided by BOC. The fuel cell operates almost silently producing nothing but electricity and clean water.

Arcola have enjoyed great success in delivering low power lighting in their own studios, but Latitude presented new challenges – not least that the theatre tent was not blacked-out so the lighting needed to compete with, or rather complement, daylight.

The fuel cell and low energy lighting add to organiser Festival Republic’s efforts to reduce the environmental impact of the entire event, including solar showers and reusable cups. This project is part of Arcola Theatre’s extensive range of sustainability activities, collectively referred to as Arcola Energy.

Arcola’s Executive Director Dr Ben Todd said:

“Latitude is a great opportunity to push the boundaries of fuel cell and low energy lighting technologies in a high pressure daylight environment. By powering the Theatre Arena we demonstrated these technologies, at close quarters, to 20 leading theatre companies and 25,000 festival-goers. We look forward to being part of many more green events”.

From Radiohead’s official website:

Andi Watson, the lighting and visuals designer for Radiohead since their club days, has a reputation for innovation and attention to detail.  It was his creative genius and strong support of the concept that brought him to suggest going further and use LED.  Back to a direct power demand system but using much less power at 100%.

For more information:

www.radiohead.com/themostgiganticflyingmouthforsometime
www.treehugger.com/files/2008/06/radiohead-daydream-festival-led-lighting.php

“Firstly we chose Osram T5 high output lamps with 2700K colour temperature. If you go to www.osram.com you can get the full spec of these lamps designated FQ. We then chosen luminaires manufactured by Norka gmbh and called ‘Erfurt’.

“These have very accurately manufactured parabolic reflectors in either medium Beam or narrow beam configuration. We used narrow beam units and this resulted in excellent distribution across the vaulted ceilings for relatively low energy usage compared with incandescent sources.

“This for the moment seems to be the best way of doing large scale uplighting or wall Washing, provided you can hide the lights as they are not pretty! They are also dimmable via a 1-10v signal, although this only goes down to about 1% and then just goes off.”