Technical Academy, run by the Southbank Centre in collaboration with ABTT, The Albany, ATG Entertainment, Factory International, Live Wire Productions, National Theatre, Roundhouse, Royal Albert Hall, RNSS, and The Production House, offers a unique, no-cost opportunity for aspiring live event technicians to gain hands-on experience. Its mission is to remove social, cultural and financial barriers and open doors to backstage careers in live events and theatre, as TPi discovers.
“There is a looming skills crisis in the sector,” said Southbank Centre’s Amber Lee, Project Manager for Technical Academy. “This is in some part due to COVID-19 and people leaving to retrain elsewhere and partly because skilled people have left the country since Brexit. We’re also seeing a new generation emerge with different expectations from employment and work/life balance and school curriculums which don’t promote off-stage technical careers. This industry is not ethnically diverse and is disproportionately male. We want to find ways of bringing new people into technical production, who perhaps didn’t know that this industry existed, make them feel welcome and show them what’s possible.”
The course actively encourages people from under-represented backgrounds to gain valuable backstage skills, including building stages, rigging lights, setting up instruments, and designing sound, lighting, and technical equipment. It provides direct experience in London’s most iconic venues, where participants meet professionals, observe workflows, and build networks. “We ran a pilot in March last year, and a second programme this January – working with partners to design the curriculum, so it is ‘by the industry, for the industry’. We think it’s important to show a range of venues, disciplines, and technicians, and hear about individuals’ career stories and backgrounds. This is none more prevalent than on the course’s ‘Careers Day’, this January, which featured 28 organisations meeting participants in a speed-dating-style event.”
As part of the curriculum, sessions include manual handling, equipment setup, and operating lighting and sound desks, as well as working with microphones, backline equipment, and projection screens. To ensure accessibility, the Southbank Centre offers a bursary to all participants, provides lunch, covers travel within London zones one to six, and supplies all necessary tools and PPE — including boots, gloves, hard hat and hi-vis gear for participants to keep.
Technical Academy was born out of a collaborative research piece by 14 organisations addressing recruitment, skills, and diversity issues in the sector. “The overwhelming consensus was that these areas were in urgent need of support,” Lee identified.
Adam King of The Production House, a long-term Southbank Centre collaborator, shared: “We’re proud of our connection with Southbank Centre. Graham Moir of Live Wire Productions [formerly Head of Technical Production at Southbank Centre] approached me a couple of years ago to discuss the talent pipeline crisis post-pandemic. From there, we joined a consortium to address these challenges.”
King leads modules on stagecraft and backline, part of a curriculum taught by technicians and guest tutors to give hands-on training in everything from PAT-testing to loading and unloading trucks. “It’s hands-on as opposed to death by PowerPoint,” he remarked.
Around a quarter of Technical Academy participants so far have identified as neurodiverse. Feedback describes the course as “a chance to try out many different roles” and “filled with so much kindness, knowledge and genuine support”, making it accessible to people from all backgrounds. “We work in arts organisations which are frenetic, so there is no good time to implement this programme,” Lee admitted. “All our partners give a lot to make it viable. And to make it 100% accessible, we offer every participant a bursary equivalent to the London Living Wage.”
The results speak for themselves. “Sixty-four percent of the pilot cohort from March 2024 took up paid work and experience, or further training in the industry within six months of completing Technical Academy,” stated Lee. “We continue supporting participants into opportunities long after the course has finished, so expect this figure to continue growing. We are dead set on providing paid work experience opportunities for participants. Once they’ve finished this course, it’s up to the industry to put their money where their mouth is and give people opportunities. Because we know when people come into this industry with no experience, people expect you to work for free — and that closes the door on a lot of potential talent.”
Craig Tye of Roundhouse stressed the importance of simplifying entry into the field: “I was keen to get involved in Technical Academy because it’s geared to those who are unaware of or have no experience of this industry and technical. While that has been amazing, it’s also where a lot of the challenges lie. We’ve had to assess how we deliver workshops and training without relying on sector-specific jargon and niche workflow processes. As a sector, we have lost the ability to train people in a working environment. When we change our mentality and embed this as part of our daily routine — training people on site — we will need initiatives like this less and less.”
Mig Burgess of ABTT echoed this with a call for holistic outreach: “The idea is retention and making applicants consider the industry. The sector needs to step up and take on these recruits and upskill or train them in-house, whether that’s encouraging ABTT’s Copper Award for emerging theatre technicians, Bronze Award for Theatre Technicians, or through signposting to an apprenticeship.”
Burgess outlined three key aspects of the talent pipeline: education, employment, and outreach. “You need to get the equipment in front of the candidate and get them excited. I think there’s a disconnect between employment, who think it’s the job of education to inspire that outreach. Industry is the education, employment and outreach. What I’d like to see employment do is commit some time, thought and budget into addressing the talent pipeline at the outreach section.
“The answer is not always university education — there are loads of pathways into the live entertainment sector. Technical Academy is a viable, inclusive and alternative way into roles backstage.”
Words: Jacob Waite
Photos: Pete Woodhead
www.southbankcentre.co.uk/create-learn/talent-artist-development/technical-academy/
