A Night Less Ordinary

Date: 9 September 2009
Artform: Theatre
Region: National

Toby Jones and Andrew Lincoln in Parlour Song, Almeida Theatre, London. Photo: Simon Annand

In February 2009, we launched A Night Less Ordinary in association with Metro. The scheme offers over half a million (618,000) free theatre tickets to anyone under 26 at more than 200 venues throughout England.

Although the government has 'curtailed' A Night Less Ordinary activities, most theatres will continue to offer free tickets to anyone under 26 until the scheme closes at the end of March 2011. A Night Less Ordinary is designed to reach new audiences and develop a new generation of arts attendees. It has proved hugely popular so far, with hundreds of thousands of people logging on to a dedicated website and searching for participating venues.

Daniel Bates, Chief Executive of York Theatre Royal, one of the venues participating in the scheme said: 'We were thrilled to be selected for a premium award for this scheme and excited about reaching out to more children and young people who don’t normally see our work - it’s the start of an ambitious and exciting two years. Since February we have signed up 1,929 under-26s for a York Theatre Royal free theatre pass, and have already given away 825 tickets in three months. The investment from the Arts Council has also allowed us to develop new projects and recruit a new team of young people (including a Board) to programme the first TakeOver festival in September 2009.'

Statistics on A Night Less Ordinary

Statistics on the progress of A Night Less Ordinary are one of the official statistics that the Arts Council produces. The data is produced and released according to a strict code of practice for official statistics.

Releases will include the most up-to-date statistics on the number of tickets made available, and take-up as part of the scheme. The data will be published on this page on the following dates: