2015 - 2016 ANNUAL REPORT

Fantasy High Street is an arts organisation that celebrates the local high street as an essential community hub. By placing performance and visual artists in businesses, high streets and public spaces within town centres, we create magical interactive events which transform everyday spaces into playgrounds for the imagination, providing residents with adventures in the heart of their communities.

We also work with artists to transform everyday shops into 'experiential' mind-boggling enterprises, creating inspirational, high quality arts projects that defy imagination, whilst exploring the values of public space.

ABOUT US

Our mission is to provoke, question and contribute to the on-going debate – what is the future of the high street?Our aims are:• To use creativity to explore the social, economic and cultural values of the high street• To make extraordinary artistic ventures possible and delivering them to the highest standard• To inspire innovation in social enterprise through mutually supportive arts/business

partnerships• To reach new audiences through experiential arts adventures in public space• To offer unique audience experiences which wouldn’t otherwise be possible

OUR AIMS

2015-2016 proved to be another successful year for Fantasy High Street, marking a period of substantial growth, both in turnover and creative project delivery.

Seven site specific projects were created for locations across London including the revival of our 2014 project The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party in Southfields, for the Wandsworth Arts Festival, with a brand new partner Enable Arts and Leisure.

Three brand new outdoor events were delivered for our existing client London Bridge City, further developing the ongoing work with their central London Estate team. This featured two adventure trails and a lighting installation for London Bridge City Pier.

We also revisited Crystal Palace Overground Festival to deliver a research project with our academic partner King’s College London. This included an adventure trail around shops and outdoor arts events using cutting edge RFID touch sensor technology.

We forged a brand new relationship with West Euston Partnership, a local organisation close to our office premises in Warren Street. This delivered free arts activities for children at their West Euston Community Festival, as well as with Heart of London Business Alliance to deliver our most ambitious project to date. The installation of 2,000 ‘Talking Tulips’ for Leicester Square was seen by an estimated 60,000 people. We were also once again shortlisted for a Best Performing Arts Project Award by Southwark Arts Forum for our work in Nunhead the previous year.

Compared with combined figures for accounting periods to Nov 2014 and to April 2015 (covering our first 16 months of trading) our turnover increased by 26% even though the period was four months shorter. Our number of creative projects also increased by 17% based on the previous twelve month period.

SUMMARY OF THE YEAR

MAD HATTER'ST E A P A R T YWandsworth, May 2015 Following its success in 2014, our Mad Hatter’s Tea Party returned to London for the Wandsworth Arts Festival 2015. Celebrating the 150th anniversary of Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ the production combines storytelling with cakes, singing and games hosted by 2 characters from Wonderland. This family orientated interactive event is ideal for young children under 12.

• Number arts activities involved: 1 (1 show x 3 performances)• Total of event days running: 1• Total of audience members: 50• Total of audience feedback recieved: 21• Total of community workshops: 1 (Storytelling at local library)• Number of participants attended: 15• Number of local businesses engaged: 1 (Southfields Library)• Number of artists worked with: 3 • Number of volunteers: 4

SUMMARY OF THE EVENT

"I loved your performance. You are totally mad!" - Audience Member

"Thank you we loved it!" - Audience Member

TALKING TULIPSLeicester Square, London, May 2015Talking Tulips was a brand new installation created for Leicester Square, commissioned by Heart of London Business Alliance. Containing 2,000 artificial tulips and using an innovative combination of visual arts and trigger-sensor technology, we created a series of characterful flowers who talked at passers-by about the history of Leicester Square. Some flowers also greeted people in numerous languages and one group sang as a flower choir together.

• Number arts activities involved: 1 (Installation of 10 boxes of talking flowers in Leicester Square)

• Total of event days running: 4• Total of audience members: 60,000 (est.)• Number of local businesses engaged: 1 (Heart of London

Business Alliance)• Number of artists worked with: 3 • Number of volunteers: 8

SUMMARY OF THE EVENT

C A R R I E RC R O W SCrystal Palace, June 2015 The Carrier Crows adventure trail included RFID wristbands which enabled visitors to navigate their way around the Overground Festival and local high street by triggering clues located at a number of digital readers. Along the way adventurers received special discounts in independent shops and VIP arts experiences including free drawing classes and workshops with artists.

• Number arts activities involved: 1 (wristband trail)• Total of event days running: 2 • Total of audience members: 111 (wristband wearers)• Total of audience feedback recieved: 15(via surveymonkey conducted on wristband readers)• Number of local businesses engaged: 6 (Bambinos, Papagaio, Vintage Hart, Blackbird Bakery, Bookseller Crow, Smash Bang Wallop)• Number of artists worked with: 6 • Number of volunteers: 2

SUMMARY OF THE EVENT

WELL BEINGWORKSHOPWest Euston Community Fest, Sept 2015Our artists delivered a range of free arts and crafts workshops for children and families. Teaching participants how to create paper flowers, origami birds, heart decorations, butterflies and kites, all the projects were focused on wellness, happiness and giving.

• Number of arts activities involved: 1• Total of event days running: 1• Total of audience members: 300 (est.)• Total of community workshops: 1 • Number of participants attended: 50• Number of local businesses engaged: 1• Number of artists worked with: 5 • Number of volunteers: 5

SUMMARY OF THE EVENT

ELPLESS E L V E ST R A I LLondon Bridge City, December 2015Building on the success of Easter Egg event, we created a series of miniature installations, clues and performers around London Bridge City and More London, for children and families to discover as they explored the area as part of festive activities in the area.

• Number of arts activities involved: 1 (1 event trail performed 10 times)

• Total of event days running: 2• Total of audience members: 160 • Number of local businesses engaged:2

(More London, Broadgate Estates)• Number of artists worked with: 3 • Number of volunteers: 2

SUMMARY OF THE EVENT

P A G O D AL I G H T SLondon Bridge City, Nov 2015 – Jan 2016A light installation created specifically for the two riverside pagodas at London Bridge City Pier. Delivered as part of the area’s Christmas Market act iv i t ies , our l ight instal lat ion transformed this underused area of the Thames Footpath and drew attention to two of its permanent features through a distinct, ever changing light display.

• Number of arts activities involved: 1 • Total of event days running: 39• Total of audience members: 19,500 (est.)• Number of local businesses engaged: 2

(More London and Broadgate Estates)• Number of artists worked with: 2 • Number of volunteers: 3

SUMMARY OF THE EVENT

EASTER E G G T R A I LLondon Bridge City, March 2016Returning for a second year, children and adults alike enjoyed following clues and meeting characters along this interactive trail to find chocolate eggs hidden around Hays Galleria, More London and the Unicorn Theatre.

"I loved when we met the captain"- Audience Member

"Lots of clues and fun!" - Audience Member

• Number of arts activities involved: 1 (adventure trail x 5 performances)

• Total of event days running: 1• Total of audience members: 89• Total of audience feedback recieved: 45• Number of artists worked with: 4

SUMMARY OF THE EVENT

The Fantasy High Street team continues to grow with regular freelancers, artists and performers returning time and again to work with us on projects. We operate from our office at The Crypt Centre near Warren Street as an associate company of Diorama Arts. Creative Director Lydia Fraser-Ward currently works from the office 3 days per week; additional team members including productionassistants and interns ensure there is a regular flow of creative talent passing through the organisation, whilst also enabling us to pass on training and work experience opportunities to emerging young talent.Additional support is provided by freelance Production Managers, Producers, Artists, Technicians and Stage Managers. Our ongoing relationship with King’s College continues to flourish with a new fully-funded research project in Crystal Palace this summer and a jointly written chapter for a new publication called "Focus on World Festivals".

OUR TEAM

Fantasy High Street has already negotiated partnerships with Wandsworth Council and Team London Bridge for projects in 2016-17. The company has also recieved funding from The High Street Challenge at Southwark Council to deliever a brand new arts project in Lordship Lane high street in summer 2016.

FUTURE CLIENTS

•Numberofprojects:7•Numberofeventdays:50•Numberoffreecreativeworkshopsdelivered:2•Estimatednumberofaudiencemembers:87,972

YEAR END AT A GLANCE