Touring of Work Scheme (Round 1) – Ireland

Purpose

• Touring activity: this is where the same artistic programme or event is taking place in three or more places. Touring activity might involve performances, concerts, events or exhibitions or other forms of presentation of artistic work for the public to engage with.
• Touring and dissemination: the Arts Council recognises that artforms and arts practices vary in their means of bringing work to the public. They recognise that tours may involve multiple or alternative means of distributing and presenting work that do not necessarily conform to the traditional touring model. This scheme applies the use of the term ‘touring’ to mean the presentation of all types of artistic work, including dissemination of work.
• Venue: this refers to arts centres, venues, galleries, schools, halls, churches, festivals or other acquired or curated spaces where the art is taking place.
• Artist/arts organisation: this refers to professional artists and/or professional arts organisations. The artist is understood to be a person who is actively pursuing a career as an artist in any artform, and who considers their arts work as their main profession or career. This applies even if their work in the arts is not their main source of income or they have other employment.
• Audience: they understand audiences to be those who engage with the arts – e.g. people attending a concert, performance or event, visitors to an exhibition, readers of literary works, listeners and viewers of the visual arts, etc.
• Audience development: they understand audience development as any activity aimed at making the arts more widely accessible – e.g.
  • Increasing audiences – attracting more people with the same profile as the current audience
  • Deepening the relationship with the audiences – adding value to the audience experience by encouraging an audience to engage with related activities – e.g. other artforms, outreach, events, talks, workshops, discussions, etc.
  • Diversifying audiences – attracting people with a different profile to the current audiences, including people who have had no previous contact with the arts or for whom access to the arts is difficult.
• Public engagement: a term covering the broad range of encounters the public may have with the arts. The Arts Council identifies three areas of particular interest:
  • Where the public engages as audience members (readers, listeners, spectators)
  • Where the public engages as active participants, collaborators or co-creators of artistic work or arts practices
  • Where the public actively engages in the arts in a voluntary or amateur capacity.
• Public engagement strategy: sometimes referred to as a mediation plan, an audience plan, or a PR and marketing plan, your public engagement strategy is a document which helps them to understand:
  • What audience you wish to reach with your tour
  • How and why you have identified this audience
  • How you are approaching audience development (such as increasing, deepening or diversifying your audience)
  • How you will ensure this audience knows about your tour and is encouraged to attend
  • What tools or methods you (and/or your venues) will use to do this.

Objectives

• The objective of the Touring of Work Scheme is to make great art of different kinds available to more people throughout the country. When selecting tours to fund, they consider artistic excellence in the work itself and clear consideration of public engagement. In most cases, the work to be toured will have already been produced and well received by audiences and critics.
• Successful applicants will also show how their tour will create or make use of a network of venues and/or other partners and collaborators. This might include other artists, producers, promoters, arts organisations, festivals, local authorities, funders, etc. Your partners and collaborators should contribute to the success of your tour in artistic, audience and geographic/spatial terms.

Funding Information

• No upper limit has been set on the amount that you may apply for. However, the Arts Council operates under budgetary constraints, the scheme is very competitive, and the Arts Council reserves the right to offer less than requested.

Eligibility Criteria

• The scheme is open to:
  • Individuals and organisations that wish to tour the presentation of work from January to December 2025 in the Republic of Ireland.
  • To be eligible to apply, you must be:
    • Based/resident in the Republic of Ireland. They may consider your application if you are based outside the Republic of Ireland. However, your application would have to convince them that your proposal would benefit the arts in the Republic of Ireland.
    • Professional practising artists. Even though you might not earn income continuously or exclusively from your arts practices, you must identify yourself, and be recognised by your peers, as professional practising artists.
    • Unsuccessful applicants to Strategic/Arts Centre/Partnership Funding may apply to the Touring Scheme(s).
• Applicants, other than Strategic/Arts Centre/Partnership Funding recipients, who are in receipt of other Arts Council funding are eligible to apply, provided it is clear that the touring activity for which funding is sought is additional to those activities for which Arts Council funding has already been offered.
• The Arts Council encourages applications that demonstrate collaboration, co-production and partnership between networks, consortia or other collectives or producing and presenting entities.
• They encourage proposals that demonstrate quality partnerships between the local and national arts infrastructure. While the Arts Council does not support any direct costs of tours internationally, they recognise and encourage applications that include support from international producing partners and/or support from relevant funding agencies (e.g. Culture Ireland) to enable the investment reach wider, international audiences.

Ineligible

• Those who are not eligible to apply include the following:
  • Organisations in receipt of Strategic/Arts Centre/Partnership Funding
  • Individuals or organisations who do not have a demonstrable track record as professional artists or arts organisations
  • Organisations or individuals not resident/based in the Republic of Ireland
  • Applicants who do not guarantee payment to artists in their original plans and contingency plans
  • Members of the Council of National Cultural Institutions (CNCI) directly funded by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

For more information, visit Arts Council.