Vault Festival, the UK’s leading independent theatre festival, ended its 2023 season on March 19, celebrating a record-breaking year.
The festival received 81,000 visitors and saw 1,860 performances of 553 shows. There were a whopping 271 world premieres and 94 professional debuts.
“We are proud to have platformed the work of over 4,000 independent artists in 2023, and almost 3,500 shows over the past decade,” said director and co-founder of the festival Andy George.
“We are fiercely passionate about the work that our artists create, about them as unique and wonderful individuals, and about promoting a world and industry that is more inclusive, more accessible, more sustainable, and more creative.”
But the record-breaking figures come the same year as the news that the festival is to lose its home at the vaults in Waterloo after more than a decade.
A statement released by the festival organisers in mid-February said that Vault Festival “has been advised by its venue-landlord The Vaults, that it must find a new home for future festivals”.
George called it a “devastating blow”, adding, “Over the past three years, as we’ve battled to survive through cancellations, postponements and a pandemic, it’s become extremely clear that the creative industry needs Vault festival to thrive and the artists we champion need Vault festival to springboard their careers.”
Most of the festival’s events and performances are held at one of the 12 venues in and around the underground tunnels.
Bec Martin, one of the festival’s directors Tweeted in February: “This is some very big, very heartbreaking news for us. We’ve done what we can, but unfortunately @VAULTFestival now needs a new home.”
According to George, the venue’s landlords are looking to use it for longer-term commercial projects. “[This] basically leaves no space or calendar room for the festival to coexist alongside it. So we’ve been effectively told by the venue that they don’t have room for us anymore.”
But, the founder added that he is optimistic about the future of the festival: “I think that’s part of our challenge over the next few months to really kind of take the essence of what is special about Vault festival and transform it. It will never be exactly the same again, but we want to keep what’s great about it and pull that forward with us.”
George continued: “The festival is the first thing that happened in that space. And so much of our DNA is to do with that space, so it’s going be an interesting process to sort of untangle our DNA from it a little bit and establish who we are as a festival outside of that space.”
The festival has launched a #SaveVault fundraising campaign with a goal to raise £150,000, and stars including Imelda Staunton, George Mackay, Adjoa Andoh, Nicola Coughlan and India Amarteifio have backed the campaign.
A passion project which began over a decade ago, Vault Festival has grown to become one of the most important creative showcases of the year.
It is known for putting on acts that would not find a home elsewhere, either because they’re from marginalised voices, are too raw (many artists are just at the beginning of their career) or “might be stories that just aren’t in the mainstream yet,” as George previously put it.
The festival includes cabaret, burlesque, drag and comedy shows, as well as unique plays, parties and circus performances.
Vault’s location is particularly important as there are now very few central London spots that are still remotely affordable to rent. Vault has a holistic approach to accessibility, which includes selling cheap tickets – most are available for around £10.
“We’d still love to stay in the area and to be in central London, but we are kind of exploring... we’re open to venues across across London, because we know that to find the sorts of spaces that we need, and the size of spaces we need, we have to be open to options,” said George.
Vault Festival, which is celebrated a pandemic-delayed 10th birthday this year, had also just built a brand new 300-capacity venue: a specially designed space for cabaret and burlesque acts.
“We’ll take it with us,” said George. “We’d love to find a way that we can make it into a more permanent fixture, you know, into something that just really specialises in programming and showcasing that network.”
Vault was founded 11 years ago by George and Mat Burtcher as a three-week, 24-event project, but it quickly expanded. Within three years the number of events almost doubled and the festival pulled in over 32,000 audience members. Now as many as 75,000 guests visit the festival and it has become so popular with acts that it receives nearly three times as many applications as there are available show slots.
The festival has also been a career springboard for numerous acts including Joseph Charlton’s play Anna X, which transferred to the West End with Emma Corrin playing the titular role two years after it was first seen at Vault.
Despite this major setback the festival’s small core team of eight are confident about its future. “The mood at the moment is very positive. And it's not just people putting on a brave face,” said George. “We're trying to see the glass half full and seeing what opportunities can come out of this.”
“Next year we’ll do something – we don’t yet know what that looks like. Part of that will be kind of what spaces we find, how much work they need. But we know we want to do something,” said George.
