Youth Theatre Census: FAQs

We’ve launched England’s biggest ever survey of youth theatres. Hundreds of groups, young companies and drama projects will put themselves on the map by filling in the 2024 Youth Theatre Census.

While the survey is open, we’ll be answering any questions on this post to help everyone fill it in as easily and clearly as possible.

Who’s it for?

The census is for any group that engages young people aged 5-25 as participants on a non-professional basis in theatre. This might involve training, workshops or making shows.

You might not call yourself a youth theatre - you might call yourself a young company, an amateur dramatics group, a theatre club, a drama group, a stage school, or something else.

You might be a very small voluntary organisation, or a big company. You might be connected to a ‘parent’ organisation (like a professional theatre), or entirely independent.

Why are you doing it?

The census is a chance to properly map youth theatre in the UK, so we can tell people how big the sector is, and what it needs to be even more successful. I’ve written some more here about why it exists.

What numbers should I enter if our activity was very different to the norm this year?

In the survey, we ask you to tell us what you’ve been doing in the last financial year (April 2023 - March 2024). We appreciate for some people that might not reflect a typical year of activity. You might have taken a break, or done a big one-off project. That’s fine - we’re hoping to get a snapshot of the sector over the year, so just record what you did, even if it was very unusual!

What should we record in staff numbers if we’re part of a larger organisation and some of that organisation’s core staff support the work of the youth theatre as part of their jobs?

We’d love you to record their work by estimating the amount of time they generally spend on supporting your youth theatre or project and adding it to the total hours figure. That way we’ll get a more accurate snapshot of the staff time spent on all aspects of youth theatre across the country.

If you have a question, email me and I’ll answer it here.