Last year introduced by MVT we contributed to the CoSTAR National Lab Research on "The Future of Grass Roots Live Music" with Royal Holloway University, taking part in interviews and one of the 16 organisations who took part in the workshops held in Stroud. Here is a link to the report has just been released.

We launched Woking Roots: Ground Up. Live. on 18 July with our Urban Festival Day. In the tradition of Phoenix Cultural Centre CIC, the day brought together a wide variety of free activities, provided by our team and by local practitioners who contribute so much to Woking’s cultural and wellbeing offer.

This year, we welcomed 16 school and college students for work experience at Phoenix Cultural Centre and Fiery Bird.

Their placements covered every aspect of running a community-led organisation and live music venue: researching community business models, non-profits and community-led initiatives; training alongside our sound and lighting engineers; setting up stages; cleaning and maintenance; marketing and design; assessing band applications; and contributing to our university research pilot.