Pay & Conditions Survey

Theatre Forum and First Music Contact, in association with the Association of Irish Stage Technicians (AIST) and other resource organisations, are working together to campaign for more sustainable careers for people working in the cultural sector. 

Both organisations believe if artists and musicians are to have the opportunity to make the art that enriches our lives and our communities, then the sector must heed old and new evidence and take responsibility for cultivating the conditions that allow artists, makers, and creative practitioners to support themselves through their art.

Theatre Forum and First Music Contact are acting together to collect the evidence about pay, conditions, barriers to career progression, and the challenges of retaining talent and experience in the cultural sector after the pandemic.  This evidence will be used to make the case that the sector’s employment frameworks must be re-engineered to eliminate the double whammy of poor pay for intermittent work and artists and musicians not afforded parity of pay or esteem.

We need the facts collected using this survey to back up our case for better pay and conditions as well as securing the roll-out of the Basic Income for the Arts scheme after its pilot stage.  From today we are sharing links to these Pay and Conditions surveys with artists, arts workers, musicians as well as the sector’s organisations. Once the anonymised survey results have been collated and analysed, findings will be widely shared and discussed with you and all the arts and culture sector’s stakeholders to advocate for positive change.

Help us collect the evidence to advocate for positive change.

Surveys should take you about 15 minutes to complete. The more responses we get, the stronger the evidence. We would really appreciate if you would respond by Thursday 16th March.

If you’ve any questions about the surveys, just mail coordinator@theatreforum.ie.

Thank you for your time.

Katie, Irma, and Anna.