The systemic barriers facing our community include the impact of poverty which the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) charts as deteriorating over the past decade, the additional costs involved in delivering services on an Island, a skills shortage within our sector, and the long term exodus of younger people to the mainland to find education and employment that is harming both the viability and diversity of our towns and villages.
vision that sets a course for the next three years and beyond, it demonstrates how we will evolve to meet the challenges we face and how we will deliver on our mission.
Following an extremely challenging period during the pandemic, we have been reflecting on how to adapt to an evolving new landscape. This includes some familiar, ingrained barriers we know well, but also a range of new opportunities and challenges that have emerged more recently.
Newer challenges include a much more acute mental health and housing crisis among the young, while in an area with an ageing demographic we’re also aware of a growing number of our audience with wider accessibility needs to ensure they can continue to fully engage with our work. But there are new opportunities too, with a more collaborative ethos emerging, facilitated by organisations like The Island Collection.
During the past 18 months we have consulted widely, tested new ideas and worked closely as a team to put together a
This year marks an exciting new chapter for Ventnor Exchange as we join Arts Council England’s 2023-2026 National Portfolio for the first time, which will lead to an investment of £390,000 over the next three years to help us kickstart this vision. It also marks an acknowledgement of our work and impact to date, and the extraordinary journey we’ve been on from a voluntary run project set up by teenagers
Plan, setting out our vision and ambitions for the future.
Through our events, projects and venues we want to inspire our local community, ensuring more people have access to outstanding cultural experiences and empowering everyone to be more creative in ways that are meaningful to them.
is a pioneering arts organisation for the Isle of Wight.
We bring together visionary artists to inspire, nurture, provoke and entertain, often in unconventional ways. We provide bespoke creative responses to address the needs and challenges of the Island’s community; recognising the inherently unique profile of England’s largest island.
Our mission is to build a sustainable creative economy that provides opportunities, careers and an authentic Island voice that is heard around the world.
Our vision is for all communities to have access to outstanding cultural experiences.
From urban centres to small towns and rural villages, everyone should be able to contribute to and benefit from our inspiring creative industries. We want opportunities to learn and work in the arts to exist in every region, and for authentic, unique voices from around the country to be heard.
“a brilliant cultural hub firmly embedded in its community”.
– Darren Henley, CEO, Arts Council England
has evolved in an entirely organic process over the past decade, the result of a grassroots movement led by local young people to create change and cultural opportunity.
This journey has shaped our core values and process to this day, and is an ongoing evolution as the organisation continues to adapt to respond to new challenges, refusing to be boxed into a single definition.
Initially taking the form of a 3 day arts festival, Ventnor Fringe was launched in 2010 by a team of teenagers, taking inspiration from Edinburgh and the heritage of the 1968-1970 Isle of Wight Festivals. In 2013 the ‘Ventnor Exchange Trading Company’ was formed as a legal entity to take on the lease of the town’s former Post Office
building, with the intention of creating a year round creative hub and providing facilities for the Ventnor Fringe.
Ventnor Exchange opened in November 2014, under a temporary arrangement as a ‘pop up’ arts centre, providing a dedicated creative space for the town, with a 50 seat theatre, bar, record shop and offices. In 2016 the lease on the building was transferred to the organisation, with the intention of building the venue into a permanent facility.
In 2018 ‘Ventnor Exchange
CIC’ was formed as a social enterprise, with Ventnor Fringe amalgamating to form part of this new organisation. A board of independent directors was appointed, and the project had its first full time employee. As of 2023 Ventnor Exchange has six members of staff, as well as a part time Creative Apprentice who is shared with New Carnival Company. Over 100 people volunteer with the organisation each year.
In the nine years since opening Ventnor Exchange has transformed it’s abandoned Edwardian Post Office into a bustling community hub and arts venue. We merge professional performances with a community space that’s home to a Choir, Book Club, Spoken Word Collective, Games Group and Language Classes.
Our small size is no barrier to our ambition. We’ve welcomed innovative companies like Rhum and Clay, Dante or Die and Flabbergast as well as international artists from as far afield as Canada and Afghanistan. As part of a long running collaboration with Paines Plough we’ve hosted new plays by Zia Ahmed, Anna Jordan and Duncan Macmillan which have gone on to London runs at acclaimed venues such as Soho Theatre and Bush Theatre.
We’ve hosted cutting edge comedians (Ahir Shah, Jessica Fostekew, Grainne Maguire) inspiring poets (Luke Wright, Rob Auton, Maria Ferguson) and emerging musicians (Stealing Sheep, Moses Boyd, The Parrots, Elder Island, Bad Sounds)
Ventnor Exchange has also begun to establish itself as a producing venue, commissioning an immersive Travelling Museum of local history, three new productions and an epic three story mural by the world renowned street artist Phlegm.
We launched Brave Island, an online platform dedicated to providing opportunities for 14-25 year olds in 2020, which has grown rapidly to over 350 members in 3 years.
The past decade has been more turbulent than ever and highlighted just how fragile our local economy, which relies heavily on tourism and the public sector, has become.
With many services having been stripped away and physical infrastructure in rural areas often not fit for purpose, the communities we serve across the Isle of Wight are vulnerable with the fabric of many of our coastal towns at a delicate tipping point.
Creating real and lasting change will mean providing services people can rely on, with a transition away from short lived temporary interventions to activity with longer term goals, and which is dynamic enough to be resilient to rapid changes in circumstances that will often be outside of our control.
Inspired by Arts Council England’s Let’s Create Strategy we’ve engaged with a wide variety of stakeholders over the past year, including a local school, young people we work with, our community workshop facilitators, local arts organisations and companies who tour to us, as well as local residents, our board and all of our staff to translate the ambitions of the strategy into a plan that we can deliver on the ground that will have a real, tangible and transformative impact on the Isle of Wight.
Our vision over the next three years is to lead a cultural revival that will radically change perceptions, engagement and participation in culture across the Island and to build a more resilient and sustainable organisation to deliver it. We think of the Island as a ‘rural city’ with many distinct boroughs and communities but a clear collective identity, single economy and administration. With this in mind our three
year plan has both hyper local and Island-wide ambitions.
Fundamental to our new vision is that our walls will no longer define our venue. While we have stepped outside of our building before, we will now take the majority of our programming out of our space completely to bring our work to communities right across the Island. Our community told us the land and sea is what most inspires them about their home, and that our isolated geography helps define our sense of identity. Our relationship with our ecosystem is also at the heart of the Island’s UNESCO Biosphere Reserve designation so the UN Sustainable
Development Goals will be at the heart of what we do too, the landscape will become our stage and inspire the work we make.
We will use beaches, warehouses, village halls, libraries and churches to tell our stories, and with NPO investment in our core activities we will turn our fundraising efforts to raising the capital costs of a new Big Top tent to provide a roaming town hall that can be transported to any village green, school playing field or town square. A new, portable version of our own venue that will be co-curated with community partners in each location we visit.
The Fringe will continue to evolve in its mission to help Ventnor become a thriving place to live, work and visit, with more than 15,000 visits made to performances at Ventnor Fringe each year by 2026
Instrumental in our relationship with the town is Ventnor Fringe. Already firmly embedded into the fabric of life here we will continue to be daring and ambitious, exploring the role a festival can play to not only entertain but truly inspire, raise ambitions and perceptions about what is possible. Animating all corners of the town and giving many in the community access to a diversity of culture and expression which it has never been able to experience before.
The success of the festival will be marked in several ways. We will increase ticket sales but more significantly over the
next three years we will ensure the festival reaches outside of its main venues and the town centre into residential streets, local playgrounds, woodlands, street corners and other similar settings. Will use ACE funds to deliver on a commitment to offer every resident in Ventnor the opportunity to see a free event from the festival programme within 15mins walk from their home at each year’s event by the end of the period.
We will also commit to improving accessibility at the festival, and introduce a wider range of ‘pay what you can’ events.
Ventnor Fringe belongs to the town and we want everyone to be able to take part, overcoming financial and mobility barriers.
A new portable arts venue for the Isle of Wight. We will expand our activity to new locations across the Island, ensuring a full range of cultural opportunities are made available to people wherever people live, across all of the Island’s towns and villages and invest in new physical and digital infrastructure to make this happen.
We want all communities across the Isle of Wight to have access to amazing cultural experiences but venues and other cultural buildings can be difficult to sustain year round and the built infrastructure is mostly Victorian and in poor condition. Limited public transport cuts off some communities from being able to access these sites entirely.
To tackle these challenges we want to commission a fully equipped Big Top tent to become a roaming arts centre that can be transported to any village green, school playing field or town square. Our own ‘national’ theatre. A venue that will be co-curated with community partners in every location. A simple design that can also be used to train a new generation of crew and performers, and which is flexible to host everything from immersive theatre to circus, tea dances to schools.
This tented venue will reshape perceptions of what theatre and performance is, how it’s made and where it happens. It will be more accessible, flexible and affordable than bricks and mortar, transforming the type of work that can be hosted and created on the Island. It will be more sustainable, powered with green energy and reducing audiences travel times. It will make us more resilient, with the ability to diversify income by collaborating with commercial operations like local festivals and with low overheads when not in use. It will be more inclusive, a cultural facility in which the whole island has ownership. We will work
with libraries and museums to bring their offers to more communities too.
No longer acting in isolation, we will connect the Island with partners across the country co-commissioning a new production for the tent each year, bringing together local talent and national expertise. We will tour the tent across the Island, and in future to our wider region, with conversations already ongoing
with partners in Portsmouth. Having new work made on the Island is a vital centre piece to our wider programme, allowing us to ensure work is on stage that directly speaks to our communities.
This Big Top is not just a tent, it will be a new arts centre for the Island, a roaming theatre, museum, school, library, cinema, gig venue and dancehall that visits all communities.
A year round community high street hub in the heart of Ventnor. We will design and develop more opportunities for ‘everyday creativity’ and support community-led workshops that are open to everyone
We will continue in our mission for our home in Church Street to offer a year round creative space. We are the town’s front
room; open every day as a place to meet, socialise, learn skills, have new experiences and a safe place to express yourself without fear.
We will broaden participation with a wide range of free and affordable workshops and activities, with at least 250 workshops delivered from this site every year. Spanning singing to creative writing these activities are all about building confidence and strengthening community ties, particularly between different generations, as well as providing regular supplementary employment for local artists.
Our trading company will continue to operate the craft beer bar and record store, two concepts we pioneered locally, and whose profits are reinvested into our community work. We will also expand the opening times and facilities of our new co-working space, helping us to bring freelancers and remote workers into the town centre and bringing in a new source of income.
An exciting new facility offering artist studios, rehearsal space and prop workshops, alongside offering a home for the re-introduction of a regular market in Ventnor.
Following the closure of Henry Ingrams Builders, who have occupied the site since 1840, Ventnor Exchange has agreed to take on this historic town centre site, with a vision to restore it as a makers space, combining backstage facilities for our new Big Top venue with community uses.
At the centre of the site is an outdoor yard which we would like to use to host a regular market, providing a space for artisans and makers looking to try out their ideas in a vibrant and affordable setting, accompanied by street food and entertainment.
The buildings will house rehearsal and construction
spaces where shows for the new tent will be created, provide much needed storage and production facilities for the Big Top and also provide a number of studio spaces for artists and creative startups. With both messy and movement space there is also the scope to offer different types of workshops to the public which we currently cannot accommodate in Church Street.
There is also potential for the building to act as a new venue during Ventnor Fringe.
We want to create clearer, more accessible pathways for young people who are interested in pursuing careers in the creative industries and help to widen access and build confidence among all young people in the area.
To achieve this we will expand the successful pilot of Brave Island, which has revolutionised the way we engage with 14-25 year olds. This digital platform provides completely free mentoring, funding, experiences and training.
To date opportunities have included trips to see shows in Southampton and Brighton, backstage technical theatre workshops at Kings Theatre in Southsea, placements on festivals, film sets and photoshoots, commissions, prizes, workshops and mentoring.
Opportunities are designed and devised by young people, for young people and the platform enables users to dip in and out of experiences that interest them, working around school, work and other commitments.
Over the next three years we will gradually grow the number of signed up users to at least 500, with new opportunities offered through the platform every single week of the year.
We’ll also increase our engagement with local schools through an artist in residence programme and increased collaboration to promote the Brave Island platform.
This Delivery Plan outlines our vision for what we hope to achieve over the next three years. Some of these activities are well underway, others are just beginning and we want you to be part of the journey.
Artist Registrations to participate in Ventnor Fringe 2024 will open in the Autumn, with the event returning in July 2024 when we will be celebrating 15 years of festivities.
Fundraising efforts have begun for The Big Top will intensify over the coming year. Subject to the success of these efforts we hope to launch the venue in the summer of 2025 and will begin consulting with community partners in preparation in 2024. Similarly for Ingram’s Yard extensive fundraising efforts will be required, but we hope
to complete major works by the end of 2026. We are exploring a wide range of temporary ‘meanwhile uses’ to ensure the community benefit long before this, starting with the launch of a regular market.
We are excited to have recently appointed a new Apprentice to assist and support our Creative Projects Manager in the delivery of Brave Island and are delighted that the programme was recently accepted in the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Innovation programme, allowing us to continue expanding the scheme.
You can find out more about our work at ventnorexchange.co.uk, by following us on social media and of course by visiting us. We’re open 7 days a week at Ventnor Exchange, 11 Church Street, Ventnor, PO38 1SW
If you believe in what we’re trying to achieve and want to support us please do consider signing up for an Unlimited Pass (£9.99/month) or Culture Pass (£29.99/year) or if you would like to make a donation or support in other ways please do get in touch.
Let’s make it happen!
Creative & Operations Director
Mhairi Macaulay
Creative & Development Director
Jack Whitewood
Creative Projects Manager
Megan Stisted
Creative Projects Apprentice
Kai Davies
Front of House Team
Marty Stevens
Cara Goodrem
Sam Daysh
Freddy Gisborne
Board
Pete Higgin - Chair
Becky Boucherat
Jim Willis
Rosie Wolfenden
Past & Present Supporters:
Trusthouse Charitable Foundation
National Lottery Community Fund
Daisie Rich Trust
Isle of Wight Council
Upstarter
Wight Aid
Hampshire & Isle of Wight Community Foundation
Mike Howley Trust
Major Funders:
A special thanks to the more than 250 individual donors and supporters.
Friends & Partners:
Photos from Maria Bell & Julian Winslow