South Hill Park hosts over 300 shows, events, exhibitions, festivals and films each year – alongside a busy programme of over 250 courses and workshops.
As a registered charity, costing over £25,000 a week to run, we rely on your support in order to deliver such a diverse range of events.
Embedded into everything we do is our extensive work in the community – with local individuals, societies and theatre companies.
One recent example is the Wilde Week 2022 children’s festival where we delivered over 60 workshops to 580 students, from six different schools, in just five days.
Park & Gardens
Over 230,000 people enjoy our award winning park and gardens every year.
Arts Programme
Over 104,000 people participate in our arts programme annually which includes; theatre, dance, music, workshops and cinema.
Community Programme
Over 27,000 people take part in our community learning programme – comprising of outreach events and classes for adults, children and young people – inspiring a lifelong love of arts and culture.
We develop artists of tomorrow by providing LAMDA classes and support participants to achieve their potential and obtain recognised qualifications which carry UCAS points.
In-house Theatre
We host 21 amateur theatre and music groups each year and create 4 to 6 in-house productions annually, including our popular pantomine – offering the community the chance to audition and perform.
Our South Hill Park productions encourage creativity across generations and provide opportunities for local performers, from 6 to 88, to hone their skills and star in high-quality pieces of drama and musical theatre.
Dementia Friendly Screenings
Over 500 people enjoy our dementia-friendly screenings for the elderly.
Exhibitions
We host 12 visual arts exhibitions a year, free to the public, with almost 90,000 visitors a year.
Schools
We provide primary and secondary schools with workshops, classes, work experience, tours, digital lessons and talks with industry professionals.
We work with trusts and foundations to help support Pupil Premium students access the arts.
During our children’s festival Wilde Week, we offer free visual arts workshops, in collaboration with local schools, to over 600 students.
Learning and Participation
Over 2200 young people take part in our community theatre and learning and participation activities each year. This includes our Wilde Young Producers group which provides 15-20 year olds with training and hands-on experience working in a professional venue.
In addition, Wilde About Arts (for young carers) and Eleven Seventeen youth club are our accessible arts classes for young people, encouraging; teamwork, organization, self motivation and a passion for the arts.
Resident Companies
We provide space for resident companies – including Black Eyed Theatre, Theatre RE and County Dance Company Youth – to research and develop new shows, showcasing the talents of young aspiring actors and dancers.
Nurturing Talent
We nurture talent by providing exceptional holiday activities for over 160 young people and have bursary spaces available to support those who are most in-need in our community.
National and International Partners
We partner with national and international partners – including The Prince’s Trust and Rubies International College – to promote diversity and connect people to each other, to new ideas and to the world around us.
Artemis College
We are proud associates of Artemis College – a leading vocational Performing Arts college who provide free training for aspiring young performers between the ages of 16-19, hosting 45 students annually (and 1100 in total so far).
Volunteers
We support over 100 volunteers and welcome 20 students from the Arts into work experience annually.
Charitable Projects
We regularly support our community with charitable projects.
During Covid, we adapted our work to deliver an all-digital, multi-disciplinary programme which included professional and community generated work that was viewed over 79,000 times. We now have over 2000 taking part in our courses digitally.
Your contribution helps to keep our community work going – thank you.
Core figures based on visitors in the 2022/23 financial year
Watch the videos below to see how our Learning & Participation team has helped inspire, connect and enrich lives through the creative arts from 2019 to 2023.
Thank you for allowing our pupils to come and see the Tempest. I think it was a great experience for all; certainly pupils were discussing it in the car park after with particular praise given to “making it a musical” and “the way the ropes changed”. As a teacher it was lovely to hear pupils discussing Shakespeare with the same level of interest normally reserved for Love Island! Myself and the other three teachers who attended will definitely be coming back soon.
Thank you Mark for allowing our child such an incredible opportunity. She has really enjoyed herself throughout the whole process and made some new friendships. Despite being autistic, she coped brilliantly with all the change and a new environment to where she has performed previously, and as a family are very grateful for the experience.