As member of the Musician’s Union, I was part of the process to sign a memorandum of understanding between Coventry City of Culture Trust, Midlands TUC Cultural & Leisure Committee and the trade unions Equity, BECTU and the MU. This memorandum contains the agreements we reached on the terms of engaging professional actors, performers, musicians, creatives, and technicians, looking forward to the fact that Coventry is the UK City of Culture 2021. Among other things, it ensures musicians engaged for the celebrations will be paid at better than MU rates.

This agreements does not cover volunteers and educational or developmental opportunities involving students, because neither of those should take the place of professional engagements. However, other aspects like intellectual property rights and diversity are covered.

If you want more information about what being the UK City of Culture means for Coventry, you can read their statement after being awarded with this recognition back on December 2017.

The memorandum of understanding is going to be available soon. If you are a professional actor, performer, musician, creative or technician in the cultural and leisure industry, I strongly recommend you to check it out and learn about the opportunities you could get with Coventry next year, and the conditions of work you can expect from what promises to be a fantastic programme of activities and support for the arts.