Free resources
Back in March 2020 we compiled a list of free resources for freelancers struggling in the UK because of COVID-19 and its widespread affects.
Very few of them were created by us - we simply found them online and thought they might be useful to our community, so compiled them here.
(This list was last updated Nov 6th 2020)
(As we are based in the UK a lot of these resources are UK focused, but some work no matter where you are in the world)
They’re organised into the following categories:
Specialised creative resources - A collection of various resources uniquely targeted at artists (these have the added benefit of being kept up to date regularly)
Live stream resources - as there’s so much interest in how to bring performance art online, we thought it deserved its own category.
Teach online - opportunities and resources to help you teach or learn online.
Transition existing skills online - resources, blog posts, and tips on bringing your work online
Freelance online - share your skills with individuals and businesses online
Online support groups - Online forums to connect with, discuss with, and support others who have been similarly affected.
Quick Links - to collective covid info
Still useful - a collection of resources that haven’t been updated recently, but are still useful.
We have created a few resources of our own:
Creative skills - a site where you can offer your creative skills to anyone anywhere, and easily get paid. We made this site during covid to support artists, so we charge no commission.
The social distance calculator to help venue owners calculate the max number of people they can fit safely in their venue.
Legal Disclaimer
The content and any advice or recommendations given in this document come from links sourced across the internet by DBMA Ltd (Tutti). They are given in good faith and aim to be helpful to others. However, they cannot, and should not, be taken as advice, nor should you act upon what is here without taking professional advice specific to your own situation.
Specialised creative resources
A collection of various resources uniquely targeted at artists (these have the added benefit of being kept up to date regularly)
A range of useful advice for musicians including navigating government guidance, accessing hardship funds, writing a risk assessment, staying well and healthy and succeeding online.
Bands for Hire have put together this handy Covid-19 Risk Assessment PDF Generator for musicians to ensure your health and safety documents are in good order during Coronavirus.
COVID-19 advice for members, including information for freelancers working in film and TV and workers in theatre, live events and the arts.
Every week, Alternative Classical hosts ‘Opportunity Friday’ on Twitter: a thread of 10 classical music and arts admin jobs and opportunities!
Howlround are a free and open platform for theatre-makers worldwide.
They amplify progressive, disruptive ideas about theatre and facilitate connection between diverse practitioners. They function as a “commons”—a social structure that invites open participation around shared values. All of the content (essays, videos, podcasts) on HowlRound comes from the theatre community who chooses to participate—that means you!
This document is built for event organisers but there’s LOTS of good information in here that could be applicable to all creative freelancers, including suggestions of tech for virtual events, meetings, video recording, and quick landing pages.
This list is specifically designed to serve freelance artists, and those interested in supporting the independent artist community. This includes, but is not limited to, actors, designers, producers, technicians, stage managers, musicians, composers, choreographers, visual artists, filmmakers, craft artists, teaching artists, dancers, writers & playwrights, photographers, etc.
What this list IS: an aggregated list of FREE resources, opportunities, and financial relief options available to artists of all disciplines.
What this list IS NOT: a place to promote individual artist practices (we love you, but we’re not equipped for that); a place to promote fee for service work; or a place to seek direct emergency funding.
Original resources and inspiration provided by Nicole Brewer, Ann Marie Lonsdale, Quanice Floyd, Tiffany Wilhelm, Brian Herrera, Hannah Fenlon, & Clementine Bordeaux.
Live streaming resources
People who can help you with live streaming
Have a show that you want to live stream?
These guys can help you with everything: they have the venue, the gear, the people, the training, and the experience to help you live stream your show.
Blogs & articles to help get your head around live streaming
Artists are getting discovered, building engaged fan bases, and making money by live-streaming on Twitch.
Karen can teach you how.
This is a post in a series of blogs about how to live stream a theatre production.
I’ve written it in direct response to the Coronavirus and the crisis that the performing arts faces in the coming months as we work out how to tell stories while being unable to gather to enjoy live performance.
This has turned into a long and detailed series of posts. In trying to respond to questions and interest from colleagues I’ve tried to be as detailed as I’d be for any consulting client when writing such a report.
My aim is to give actionable insights into the choices that you as an organisation or freelancer can use in terms of purchases, commercial strategy and technology.
Tech to help your shows get seen & paid for
Audiences reserve a spot.
Enjoy the experience, in person or virtually.
Pay what it's worth after.
Established platform for live stream gaming.
Can be used by performing artists to live stream performances. Free to join a stream - artists can make money through becoming a twitch affiliate, and contributions from viewers.
More details about this can be learned from our blog section above.
(link goes directly to a music & performing arts channel, as an example of various channels)
On Stageit, artists perform live, online shows from their laptop that are never recorded or archived.
Stageit allows both fans and artists to be part of the show. Fans are encouraged to ask the artist questions, request songs, and even chat with other fans during the show.
Stageit enables fans to support artists. Whether you're helping an artist finance their next album or contributing to the performer's favorite charity, Stageit artists actually get paid for their time.
Teach online
Opportunities
This marketplace was made for creatives affected by COVID-19. It is made to help them share their skills and offer lessons to anyone, anywhere, online. It can help with payments, and will charge 0 (ZERO) commission.
(This was created March 18th 2020)
To ALL freelancers, even if you’ve never tutored before, please consider joining Tutorful. There’s high demand for PAID online tuition at the moment and your GCSE/A-LEVEL/IB/University experience will be super valuable to Year 11 and 13 students right now.
Resources
An absolutely enormous collection of digital tools and resources worldwide for online education
In Estonia, a leading education nation (no 1. in PISA test in Europe), all schools are closed since March 16th. Teaching and learning are moved fully online.
The country is globally known for its e-services. To support other countries with remote learning, Estonian education companies opened up their e-solutions for the world, for free.
List of available solutions (updated constantly)
A Shift in Pedagogy Amidst Coronavirus Outbreak
With the past week many universities across the US have moved to teaching their courses online. While this may seem to be easier for business, math or science, we are all on the same boat. Suddenly going online will seem difficult and/or challenging for theatre or/and dance practitioners but it can be done.
In a rush to help, I have created this google doc with references, ideas and more.
As an organisation fundamentally invested in the live event of theatre and performance, and the various forms of pedagogy that it demands, ATHE are starting this open-source site for sharing discussions of the challenges, particular problems and issues that this poses for our disciplines, as well as developing best practices and shareable resources.
For my colleagues who are now being instructed to put some or all of the remainder of their semester online, now is a time to do a poor job of it. You are NOT building an online class. You are NOT teaching students who can be expected to be ready to learn online. And, most importantly, your class is NOT the highest priority of their OR your life right now. Release yourself from high expectations right now, because that’s the best way to help your students learn.
This 21 minute video offers thoughts and a sample teaching sequence for theatre teachers who suddenly have to teach in person classes as online classes due to the corona virus.
Transition existing skills online
Resources to help with the transition
This is for you if:
You are an independent worker
You are a musician (or other creative) who needs ways to make money online quickly
You are also creative with resources
You have internet access and aren’t afraid to use it
You are willing to implement these strategies quickly
You are willing to make some big moves and uncomfortable asks
You are also willing to look at the long-term goals
This guide from Cotswold Co covers important topics such as:
pros and cons of remote work
statistics of WFH employees
challenges faced by remote workers
practical tips & advice for a productive and healthy home workspace
From Carla Watkins:
Working remotely, working from home and generally keeping going without going to your actual workplace is a hot topic at the moment, and is suddenly happening on a massive scale. While it’s not the way I’d have chosen for it to take off (cheers, coronavirus), there are definitely some wonderful upsides to working at home.
Having said that, if you’ve never done it before, or if your business hasn’t needed it, it can be a bit overwhelming, so I thought I’d round up my best tips, tricks & tools for you. Whether you’re a business owner or an employee, I hope you’ll find something helpful here for you.
This guide offers some quick and easy tech interventions you can make, at low cost and high impact.
We have identified common problems and challenges that you may face and made suggestions about appropriate tech tools that could help address these common challenges.
The majority of these tools are free and come with comprehensive instructions. There’s usually also bespoke support available from the providers that you can pay for if you need it.
The reality of working from home is rarely as rosy as it seems
From the outside, it might look like people who work from home have more self-discipline or drive than others. But I’ll let you in on a little secret.
As remote workers, there are usually significant disparities between how we imagine our days going, and how they actually end up. However, with some practice and diligence, there are little tweaks anyone can make to their routines to turn their remote work expectations into a consistent daily reality.
You don't need a to-do list, you need a system you can trust.
We’ve gathered the most powerful productivity methods and frameworks all in one convenient place. This post will give you a brief overview of the most popular and useful productivity methods, how each works, and what kind of person will find each useful. It’s designed to help you get set up with your ideal workflow as quickly as possible so you can start reaping the productivity benefits right away.
Freelance online
Freelance listing websites: have skills you can offer to businesses remotely? List yourself on any of the sites below
Twine is a community and freelance marketplace for all creative and digital freelancers. Musicians, designers, developers, animators, artists, illustrators and more.
PeoplePerHour connects clients to expert freelancers who are available to hire by the hour or project.
An online space for employers and United Kingdom freelancers to connect, work together and get projects done
You can find a variety of jobs that suit you on Freelancer.com. Just complete your profile and let us know your skill sets so we can match you to the right jobs
Online support networks
Community discussion groups set up to connect and support freelancers in a number of ways. Sorted by type.
Location-based:
💜This is a national page to coordinate the community organising to support the most vulnerable and isolated in our community during the Covid-19 outbreak.
❌IMPORTANT: Covid Mutual Aid is run entirely by volunteers and not medical professionals. We’re community members wanting to support the most vulnerable with errands, information distribution and community/emotional support. For up to date medical advice you should continue to check the news and NS website for further announcements.
🔹We recognise that everyone is at risk of being affected by this pandemic, but that a pandemic doesn't hit everyone equally. That's why we're organising to support the most vulnerable, including the elderly and those with pre-existing health conditions, during the outbreak.
(Read more on their page)
On March 11th 2020, we set up a Facebook group called 'Anti-viral work for freelancers and small businesses' in response to the severe impact of COVID-19 on the self-employed.
We grew to over 1300 members, across sectors and locations, in just 1 day. We are still growing every minute.
Members are coming together as a community to share their current challenges and to share advice, support and resources. It is clear that we are not alone - unfortunately the growing crisis of COVID-19 is causing individuals and businesses to lose huge amounts of work and feel the biggest threat to their businesses and livelihoods in a generation.
Where are we going?
It is also clear that we are not set up as a society to support the self-employed when they are faced with situations outside of their control. We want to help, to come together and to mobilise. We feel we can help share the voices of the self-employed community and rally for change.
Created by Benjamin Newsome:
He set this group up as a place Producers, Teachers, Performers or Creatives or anyone theatre related can share helpful tips or info on what's happening to them. This is a time when the industry needs each other so all accounts and suggestions are helpful to be able to learn from to steer in a safer direction.
Please use the search tool if it's a specific subject you are looking for as it may have been spoken about already.
NO posting of medical posts. A simple search of NHS will bring up the correct information.
Laura is gathering some resources to share with fellow theatre instructors as some of them move to remote learning for the immediate future. In order to share resources more easily, they thought they’d create a group specifically for exchanging ideas, materials, resources, lesson plans, etc.
This group has been set up not to discuss Covid19 but to try to bring together the industry freelancers and offer some helpful advice and share information to support one another. The industry is facing a huge financial impact and none moreso than the freelancers who put their life and soul int the events across the world.
You dont have to be a freelancer or even in the UK but we hope by sharing information on whats happening we can help one another in whats going to be very difficult times.
I will be writing to some of my industry colleagues and companies to see what can be done to help the freelancers and will keep you all posted on developments.
Please do share the group and the more people contribute the better we can help each other.
Helping people through very uneasy times is the goal and knowing that there are people just like you, and you are not alone
This Group (hopefully temporary), is to share useful information to Musicians as well as Concert Organizers directly affected professionally / financially by the Coronavirus Crisis,
Please share how your employers, institutions and governments are making decisions to deal with the Crisis.
Quick Links
Note: some of these links are pre-coronavirus resources.
Still useful
A collection of resources that haven’t been updated recently, but still contain useful information
This is a list of creative professionals interested in speaking/workshop opportunities with schools and universities during COVID-19
Teachers, if you’re looking for interesting speakers for your online classes, get in touch with any of the individuals here.
Creative professionals, if you’d be interested in speaking, leave your details here, in the relevant tab at the bottom
This contains two useful sections
A list of tools that artists and speakers can use to host virtual shows.
A calendar of virtual/live-streamed events
The goal of this document, by award-winning writer & researcher Cherie Hu, is to build a comprehensive, up-to-date resource for anyone seeking guidance on how to stage alternative music events.
It’s safe to say that we don’t yet know how long the Covid-19 situation will continue, but it has already had a major impact on public health and the economy. Tech can play a role in helping on various fronts.
1 of those is by offering free or deeply discounted services to support impacted people – from educating kids in quarantine to helping teams work better remotely.
At the time of writing this post there’s already been over 110 entries from Europe and Israel. Hopefully this helps inspire more action-oriented entrepreneurs to contribute to solving this global pandemic in whatever way they can.