Annual Review 2025–26: Celebrating a year of connection, collaboration and live performance
“Culture, connection and community belong everywhere.”
We’re delighted to share The Touring Network’s Annual Review 2025–26 – a celebration of what we’ve achieved together over the past year, and of the people and communities who make rural touring happen.
At the heart of everything we do is our network of members – the volunteers, promoters, performers and organisations who make live performance happen in village halls, community spaces and arts venues across the Highlands and Islands.
The Annual Review reflects on the challenges facing rural venues, promoters and performers, and our ongoing work to strengthen the touring ecology across Scotland through connection, collaboration and creativity.
Key highlights include:
- 198 people came together at our two Gatherings, representing 53% of our membership. We showcased 20 tour-ready performances, hosted 12 discussions and workshops, and 100% of members who responded to our feedback said they felt more connected to their peers as a result.
- Our micro-networks programme continues to develop, helping promoters work together to create better-routed and more sustainable tours. The Argyll micro-network expanded its membership, while a new North and Western Isles micro-network was established. Almost a third of audience members said they don’t regularly see performances elsewhere – highlighting the important role rural touring plays in widening access to live performance.
- Our funding programmes continue to support members to bring high-quality live performance to their communities, as well as enabling members to access Our Programming Pot supported 14 professional performers to reach 12 communities, with an estimated audience of 801 people. Alongside this, our Go See fund and Access Fund grants are helping members to see new work across Scotland participate in Network events.
- We continued to support greener touring, with 40% of work programmed at our Gatherings featuring environmental themes or practices, while our micro-network model continues to encourage lower-carbon touring by creating multi-venue tours rather than one-off journeys.
- Our partnership with Theatre in Schools Scotland brought seven performances to 10 rural schools, reaching 631 pupils across the region.
- We launched our new website, giving members a stronger platform to showcase their work and making it easier for audiences and the wider sector to discover performances, resources and opportunities. More than 300 events have been listed on the site since its launch.