Principal activities of the company

The principal activity of the company in the year under review was providing support, advice, andshowcasing opportunities to UK outdoor artists, festivals, and promoters; as well as being theManagement company for the Without Walls Consortium in its third year of being a Band 3 NationalPortfolio Organisation (NPO) of Arts Council England.

Additional information

Review of Business The year was dominated by the Covid-19 Pandemic, which affected every aspect of the organisation’s activity. As the pandemic swept across the world, events and festivals were cancelled and most of the activity that XTRAX had planned in 2020/2021 was either cancelled, postponed or radically redesigned. The Platform4:UK programme, supported by Arts Council England, included plans to promote British artists at a series of events in the UK and internationally, alongside a number of training and development opportunities. As it became clear that Covid-19 restrictions were going to affect all of the planned activity the XTRAX staff worked hard to reimagine some of the programme for digital platforms. The first event that required radical adaptation had been planned in association with Circostrada, the European network of street arts and circus professionals of which XTRAX is a long-standing member. It had been planned that XTRAX would host a “Circostrada Lab” in England in April 2020, a residential training and development opportunity for professionals from across Europe. In the wake of the lockdown, this was redesigned as an online development seminar, hosted on a video conference platform over a period of three days in June with a variety of speakers, focused on the topic of “leadership in times of crisis”. It was very successful and was attended by 156 delegates from 22 countries. As well as issues arising from the pandemic, the seminar addressed issues of equality and diversity in the outdoor arts sector, a hugely relevant topic in light of the global focus on the Black Lives Matter movement that arose out of the murder of George Floyd in America in May 2020. The publication that was produced about the event included papers from keynote speaker Hilary Carty (Director of Clore Leadership Programme) as was well as other significant sector professionals and has been widely shared as a resource for sector professionals in the UK and internationally. It was the first in a series of online events that XTRAX organised, and the team quickly learned how to manage successful events using a digital platform.The second showcase in association with Stockton International Riverside Festival (SIRF) was planned for July 2020 and delegates were expected to attend from all over the world. This festival was also cancelled because of the pandemic, but the XTRAX team worked to programme two days of meetings and networking events online. The programme included two online panel discussions, one about Outdoor Arts in East Asia, with speakers from South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, and another about the Future of International Touring Post Brexit. Overall 100+ delegates from 24 countries attended the events. Additionally, XTRAX worked throughout the year to explore opportunities to support artists and festivals through the challenges of the pandemic. When the national lockdown was introduced in March 2020 it was clear that many of the artists and festivals with whom we work were facing severe hardship, so we explored opportunities to support them by organising online meetings and information sharing sessions. Our well-established networks and reputation for hosting meetings and training events meant that we were able to regularly bring together artists, festival organisers and related professionals from across the UK and internationally in a supportive environment, to connect and share updates about how they were managing the challenges of the situation. We also attended and made presentations at a number of international online meetings and conferences across Europe, Asia and Australia, ensuring that the UK sector remained connected with news and developments around the world. Through the year we welcomed over 520+ delegates from 33 countries to our webinars and meetings, all of them online. A further challenge to the UK sector in addition to the pandemic during this year was the implementation of the new Brexit trade agreement from January 1st 2021. With travel restrictions in place across Europe because of Covid19, the impact of the new regulations has been difficult to see in practice; but the XTRAX team worked hard to prepare guidance documents for artists and festivals about how to navigate the new rules, so that they would be equipped with the relevant information about how to manage the system when international travel and touring became possible. As well as an online publication on the subject, XTRAX has organised regular briefings, seminars and one to one advice sessions for artists and festivals seeking to understand how to navigate the new way of working. The value of the work XTRAX has delivered on this subject has been welcomed by many in the sector including Arts Council England, who offered additional funding support to enable its continuation.Throughout the year the biggest area of work that XTRAX delivered was the management and strategic development of the Without Walls consortium. Whilst most of the festivals in the Without Walls networks were cancelled, XTRAX worked throughout the year to support the artists that were commissioned by Without Walls, offering them advice about how to develop their projects in a Covid safe way and generally providing a supportive environment in which to navigate the challenges of the situation. As well as guaranteeing commission and cancellation payments to all artists, XTRAX worked with the Without Walls board and partners to support a new round of Research and Development support for artists during the year, offering much needed financial investment to creative practitioners during the pandemic. Much of the wider Without Walls programme of activity was redesigned as online activity, including some imaginative training activities; and thanks to video conferencing facilities, the artists, board members and festival networks were able to meet regularly online. XTRAX had planned to take the large-scale show As the World Tipped by Wired Aerial Theatre to major festivals in Singapore and Hong Kong in 2020, but these festivals were cancelled because of the pandemic. Discussions are ongoing about possible delivering these performances at a later point in the coming years.The Team:Throughout 2019/20 XTRAX has retained a hard-working core staff team that included: Maggie Clarke (Director); Matt Belfield (Communications Manager); Elena Cavallero (Project Manager, Digital Development until her departure in January 2021); Annika Edge (General Manager, on Maternity Leave August 2020 – March 2021); David Morgan (Programme Manager); Irene Segura (International Relations and Talent Development Manager, on Maternity Leave July 2020 to April 2021); Hannah Hartley (Project Manager); Katrina Houghton (Project Manager); Anais Biaux (Creative Development and Partnerships Manager); Adam Cooper (Finance and Administration Officer); Harpreet Kaur (Project Manager July – December 2020). To cover the Maternity Leave of Annika Edge, Victoria Firth and Ralph Kennedy joined the team from August 2020 as joint General Manager. Rebecca McGreevy joined the team in October 2020 as Marketing Assistant, Natalie Beech joined the team in February 2021 as Marketing Officer and Laetitia Bortot joined the team in March 2021 as Project Manager. Freelance Management Accounts support was provided by Anna Scarisbrick and Kathy Townsend (both CIMA Management Accountants) and Project Management support by Lou Lomas (January to March 2021).Finances:The financial picture for the year reflects the impact of the pandemic and widespread event cancellations, with reduced income from event partners alongside reduced expenditure in event delivery and related travel costs. It is anticipated that most of the activity planned for 2020 will continue into 2022/23. The Arts Council grant income for delivery of this activity has been deferred for future use. The staff team worked remotely for the duration of the lockdown periods, and reworked financial systems to ensure they were fit for purpose in the changed circumstances. During May and early June 2020 some of the team were furloughed, whilst the viability of the programme for the year was explored; though it quickly became apparent that the workload would continue throughout the year in an alternative form so further furlough was not required. The management fee from Without Walls was reduced to reflect the few weeks when some staff were furloughed.In 2020/2021 income totalled £410,308 (a 6.9% decrease from £440,621 in the previous year) and consisted of Arts Council England project grant funding for the Platform4:UK Showcase activity, showcase partner contributions, the management fees from Without Walls Consortium, and Wired Aerial Theatre as well as consultancy income. Further, XTRAX received funds via the Job Retention grants scheme and a small business grant. Expenditure of £395,635 consisted mainly of staffing (91%) and overheads (7%). This year a small surplus of £14,673 was generated, on which corporation tax of £2,788 was paid, thus increasing the overall reserves level to £153,517. The Directors would like to thank the staff for their hard work and resilience during such a challenging year and is grateful to Arts Council England for their ongoing support of the work of the company.

This report was approved by the board of directors on 20 December 2021
and signed on behalf of the board by:

Name: Margaret Stephenson
Status: Director