Let Them Play, the latest incarnation of which took place on December 17th, 2024, in the University of Sheffield Drama Studio, was a night of performance, bringing together music societies & a dance group from the university to perform to excited audiences, as well as to demonstrate the value of the arts. The campaign, led by Activities & Development Officer Anna Campbell, is the second such event of its type, the first occurring in March 2024 in Western Bank Library. Whilst a fantastic opportunity to see groups perform I had never seen before, and to bring together musically-minded people to celebrate their talent, Let Them Play feels like a campaign that hasn’t quite figured itself out yet, which I believe is limiting its potential.
As I explained in my recent review of the event, Let Them Play seems to have a limited reach and scope, despite the ambitions of its cheerleaders. Support for the arts, is as many would appreciate, woefully lacking from many in society, and seeing Campbell take this bleak fact and attempt to remedy it is a welcome step in improving the prospects for the arts and its practitioners, bringing together seven societies. But Let Them Playis missing some fundamental elements to make the campaign more successful. With this in mind, assuming the goal is to achieve greater arts investment and advocating for better arts provision at the university, there are several areas which I believe need to be addressed before the next incarnation, which has been promised for later this year.
Firstly, a major problem Let Them Play endures is its identity crisis. As many people who have had such crises themselves, me included, will know, it’s very difficult for other people to understand who or what you’re trying to be, when you don’t appear to know for yourself. I, as someone who has been to Let Them Play and spoken to the Activities & Development officer myself, believe that this event is meant to be simultaneously a showcase of the talent the students of our university have, but also a drive for greater investment and interest in arts provision, resourcing, funding and recognition.
But this understanding is not certain. And as someone who has engaged with this event and its organisers, if I’m not certain what the event is going for, the rest of the attendees have no idea. Whilst the showcase speaks for itself, it is this second branch, which I assume is the one Campbell is pitching to most, that struggles to emerge and take hold in the mind of people who see it. The idea that this is meant to be an investment drive simply isn’t there, and if people don’t know they’re meant to be investing, they won’t invest.
Compare this to the campaign of Wellbeing & Sports Officer Annie Henderson, Invest in Sports. Reciprocally to Let Them Play, I know nothing about what this campaign has looked like, yet it is a much more successful one, even at surface level. And that’s due to its messaging. By reading ‘Invest in Sport’, you know instantly what Henderson’s goal is. Henderson wants people to, simply as the name suggests, invest in sport, and that message comes across loud and clear, even without knowing anything about the specifics of the campaign or its activities.
Whereas comparing this to Let Them Play, you would be forgiven for assuming that there is an entity attempting to stop people from playing something. Whilst many of us involved in the arts and culture sectors will know that the entity stopping people from playing is venue provision and funding, this doesn’t come across. And even if it did, this impact is then reduced when the event takes place in a purpose-converted venue, namely the Drama Studio, tasked solely with showcasing the arts, whilst also showing other areas of the building that can already be used for various arts activities.
With this in mind, I believe that future Let Them Play events would benefit greatly from improved, clear and distinct messaging about the aims of the campaign, the challenges facing the arts that we’re attempting to overcome, as well as considering the setting more carefully. I, personally, feel that holding Let Them Play in a closed-off Western Bank Library sold this aim much better than the Drama Studio did – by setting up a performance showcase in a venue as unexpected as a library, you’re inherently showing to audiences and viewers that the arts currently have to set up shop in any available space they can get, even ones ill-suited for their activities. By considering unusual and non-arts spaces, the case can be made much easier that the arts need space, and investment in that space, to thrive. But investment brings us on to the second major problem with Let Them Play.
If I were to say to you, “Who is an investor? What does an investor look like?”, you may come back with all sorts of stereotypical assumptions – suit-wearing, big business, smart watch-wearing, earpiece-using, wads of cash perfectly arranged in a jet black briefcase. Whatever image would be conjured up in your mind, I am certain that it wouldn’t be an image of students, a couple of university staff and lecturers and friends of performers. This is the root of the second problem, and arguably the most fundamental.
If Let Them Play is indeed a campaign seeking to promote and drive investment in arts and art spaces, you need people in the room who have the means and the willingness to invest, or at the very least, advocate in the right circles for these goals. Sadly, the complement of audience members for Let Them Play does not live up to this description. If we want people and businesses to invest in the arts, we need those people and those businesses in the room. Investors, bankers, local entrepreneurs, notable arts enthusiasts, and people with reach, such as influencers and campaigners.
But as well as that, if we want to drive local change, we need changemakers! Let Them Play needs to consider bringing in a wide variety of people who can campaign and make change on this issue. Consider local pressure groups, councillors, the Lord Mayor, our local MPs, the Mayor of South Yorkshire, officials and civil servants, and even looking to national changemakers, like members of the Culture, Media & Sport Select Committee, and ministers from the Department of Culture, Media & Sport (one of which, Stephanie Peacock, is an MP from Barnsley!). Particularly considering the recently-launched Sheffield Culture Strategy, the passion and drive for investment is there, but if those people are not at Let Them Play, how will they ever know what our performance societies do, or to invest in them?
Getting these sorts of people in a room is difficult, and I cannot say whether these people were approached and invited to Let Them Play, but regardless, if they’re not in the room, they’re not advocating / investing / discussing with our student leaders and societies. If Let Them Play is to achieve investment in our students, the Drama Studio or even the creative and performing arts in general, these conversations need to happen and we need to get these types of people in the room to have them. I love the idea of doing showcases for our students and even just for the sake of doing them to allow our students to perform, and if investment isn’t the goal, then the current form of Let Them Play is brilliant, but until it’s clearer what Let Them Play is aiming for, it will struggle to reach its goal. But even if it does, we need to be sure to include all of the groups we’re aiming to.
The final prominent issue with Let Them Play is the variety of student groups performing. As previously mentioned there were seven societies who performed at Let Them Play – six music societies (one of which was split into multiple performance for its subgroups), and one dance group. Whilst it was fantastic to hear from all of them, and to share in their talents (all but two of which I had never seen perform before), for an event aiming to raise the profile of performance societies, it was missing one very fundamental element – the performance societies!
There was only a single dance group, no comedy, no theatre, and no literature like poetry. This is a massive black hole, particularly when advocating for the performing arts, and in a theatre venue, and many performance mediums are omitted. This wasn’t due to lack of trying – SUTCo and SUPAS were definitely approached about this event, but sadly, this is where scheduling issues inevitably held their impact. Whilst I am not certain at what point the event was scheduled or societies approached, Let Them Play taking place in week twelve of the semester means two things – deadlines and availability.
People would have had end-of-semester deadlines, meaning they are less able to attend or perform. Being at the end of the semester, some may have already gone home for the winter break. Being the last week before the end of semester, there were myriad house parties, bar crawls, Christmas dinners, society functions and other events to keep people away. And specifically for theatre societies, Let Them Play being on December 17th directly clashed with both SUPAS’ Christmas Sessions, and SUTCo’s Semester Two Auditions.
If another Let Them Play does indeed take place, societies need to be approached and a date secured as soon as possible, in order to make sure as many as possible are able to be represented. Nothing will sell arts investment and Let Them Play better than a wide variety of performances, groups, mediums and styles that rival any showcase that has been assembled before. It would also allow other creative arts groups, such as designers and artists to create or showcase their own work at the event, further highlighting the dynamism and diversity of our artists, of all forms at the university.
Let Them Play is a great campaign, and one that holds a wide potential and possible benefit for the arts at Sheffield, and its student practitioners. But there are areas for improvement, which would allow the third rendition to take off, and hopefully, bring tangible benefit to our student groups and societies. With the next rendition confirmed but no details yet available, there is plenty of opportunity to develop Let Them Play into a powerhouse campaign, one that could leave a strong and significant legacy for arts at Sheffield for generations to come.
