Wondering what our societies get up to? Lucy, Chair of Loco Show Co, one of our Musical Theatre Societies, is here to tell you about ‘Students Saving our Theatres” and how they’re working on to raise money for The Swan Theatre in Worcester. You can donate to their cause here:
Hello Everybody,
My name is Lucy, I will be going in to my 3rd year, studying Geography. I am the Chair of Loco Show Co here at the University of Worcester. Our society puts on two shows throughout the academic year, as well as many other events and opportunities for our members to get involved with.
We do a wide variety of fundraising throughout the year, which include: Scarefest (which is a Scare-Walk around Halloween), the Senior Citizens Tea Dance (which is organised with the Student’s Union) and we also incorporate raffles into the intervals of our shows, the profits of which go to the chosen RAG charity.
Recently, Loco Show Co. and The Spotlight Theatre Society have become involved with a nationwide initiative which raises funds to save local theatres. This movement was created by 3 drama society students at the University of Warwick.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the arts industry has suffered significantly and, as a society, we are extremely worried. The majority of income for theatres comes from ticket sales and this has been impossible as theatres nationwide have been closed
Our involvement with the initiative allowed us to choose a local theatre to receive a portion of the fundraising final total, we have chosen The Swan Theatre in Worcester. The overall fundraising goal of the campaign is to raise £10,000! This money will be donated directly to the theatres involved to help them recover financially.
The campaign is formatted with 5 weeks of fun fundraising challenges and these began on the 15th June. The challenges last 1 week each and are as follows-
Week 1 – Who can make the most viral TikTok.
Week 2 – Running/ Walking 5km a day.
Week 3 – Upcycling an outfit or item of clothing.
Week 4 – Learn as much of a language in a week as you can.
Week 5 – Helping our in your local community.
These challenges engage all ages and aim to make positive changes and impacts within local communities nationwide. The challenges will culminate in an online scratch night which is premiered on YouTube and allows student-theatre makers to have the opportunity to have their work seen.
For the Week 1 challenges, we made a daily TikTok video and these can be seen on our society TikTok account (@locoshowco). The most viral one almost got 650 views and they were all inclusive, fun for our members and focused around theatre.
Week 2 challenged members to walk/run 5km a day and our society travelled over 150km within the week, in a variety of locations including Worcester, Swansea, Hayling Island, Lincoln, The Wirral and Llandrindod Wells.
We are currently in the midst of Week 3 of our challenge, and this was to upcycle a piece of clothing and transform it into something you will wear or use.
An old dress from our Band Director, Beth, which is being upcycled in to a tote bag
Left – Emma, our society Choreographer with her upcycled top from a pair of old leggings. Middle – Me in upcycled jeans – I bleached one of the legs so it is a new colour. Right – Finley from Spotlight Theatre Society, with a lego-brick hat which he made from old bricks
If you want to get involved with the project, or just want to see the result of the rest of our creations, make sure to follow @locoshowco and @uowspotlight on Instagram and @studentssavingourtheatres to see what other societies nationwide are doing to complete the challenges. If you wish to find out more information or donate to the cause you can donate to our crowdfunder
Lucy x
Worcester Student Life 