Received from: Equity
Congress notes that:
i. applicants for performing arts courses in higher education generally have to audition: 94 per cent of Equity student members had to audition for their course
ii. over half of those members (57 per cent) had to pay a fee, typically between £40 and £80 for their audition, and 75 per cent of working-class respondents to an Equity survey said they had been prevented from applying from a course because of audition fees
iii. audition fees are the tip of the iceberg in terms of barriers facing working-class performers building a career in the performing arts, alongside low pay, precarity and inadequate social security.
Congress calls, therefore, on the TUC to:
a. support Equity’s demand of education institutions to scrap audition fees, following the example set by the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, who scrapped such fees in 2022 in an “effort to increase access and diversity”
b. urge arts education institutions to further remove hidden course costs – such as for materials and equipment – and cover expenses for attending auditions
c. encourage the government to make it a condition of public funding that arts education institutions must not charge audition fees.
Equity