Hollis Sponsorship Bulletin

Lucy Stout, head of development at Cardiff-based arts initiative Artes Mundi, was presented with the Hollis Award for Outstanding Contribution Award by Arts & Business chief executive Colin Tweedy.  Lucy has dedicated her career to arts fundraising.  Few people have done more to bring together the public, private, arts and education sectors in a way which benefits cultural, community and commercial stakeholders.  In a prestigious career which spans 25 years, Lucy has been development director of the Royal National Theatre in London and was Director of Development for the Welsh National Opera, establishing the department and leading the fundraising team for 13 years.   Lucy’s aim is to bring the arts together with the right business sponsors in relationships that go way beyond the money.

Foreign exchange and business payments specialist Travelex has renewed its successful sponsorship of the Travelex £10 Ticket season for a further three years from 2010.  The programme encourages first-timers to the theatre.  325,000 tickets (an average of nearly 25% each year) have been bought by people who have not booked at the National Theatre before.

The millionth Travelex £10 Ticket was sold at the end of the 2009 season.  The partnership between Travelex and the National Theatre began in 2003.  For the eighth year running, tickets for the 2010 season in the Olivier Theatre (beginning in April) will still be available at £10.

Lloyd Dorfman, Chairman of Travelex, said today: “We are delighted to continue our partnership with the National Theatre and it’s tremendous to be associated with a sponsorship that grows year on year and that the general public responds to so positively.”

Nicholas Hytner, Director of the National, said: “I had a very strong instinct when I started as Director of the NT in 2003 that there were many people who would come and try anything here if the tickets were as affordable as cinema tickets.  The Travelex £10 Ticket has become emblematic of a new kind of National Theatre, which offers exciting and ambitious work to everybody, and I am immensely grateful to Travelex for their loyal and ongoing support.”