Dear All,

Welcome to the March 2024 edition of Ensemble.

Last month, we held our annual Management Away Day at G Live in Guildford, under the theme of Living Our Values – Creativity – something that’s at the heart of everything we do.

But what is creativity? It means different things to different people, but for me, it’s a mindset that grows out of finding solutions. 

Creativity is essential to all of us whether we’re in the box office, front of house, part of the events team, or working in marketing. We all need creativity to do our jobs.

Creativity is also crucial to Trafalgar Entertainment as business challenges need innovative solutions to be more productive, to be adaptable in a changing landscape and ultimately to grow. 

And let’s not forget that our work is a crucial part of Britain’s creative industries – as Keir Starmer says “a key element of the great British success story” – envied across the world. 

Creativity is a process – it’s keeping an open mind, and not being afraid to make mistakes. If you’re too afraid to fail, you won’t learn.

When Howard and I first launched ATG, the integrated business model of production, venues, ticketing was considered highly innovative. That was us being creative – and goodness, we learnt so much from it. Trafalgar Entertainment was built on the back of those hard lessons. 

Trafalgar is also an integrated model but crucially, it has a highly diverse offer that served us well in the unpredictable environment during and post-pandemic – yes, we are rooted in production, venues and ticketing but we added event cinema and creative education to give us a broader base of operations. 

It was creativity that helped us to adapt when the going got tough. It helped us grow an exciting and highly productive new business and here we are.

It wasn’t an accident that some of the companies we acquired when building Trafalgar Entertainment were creative learning organisations. Creativity is an in-demand skill not just in the arts but in industry – in manufacturing, finance, retail. The nurturing of creativity that we see in Trafalgar Education leads to individuals with better developed critical thinking, more confidence, more adaptability – a more creative workforce.  

Ultimately, the creativity of our company gives us a competitive advantage. For us, this means better work and more of it, more profit and a vibrant, interesting and more fulfilling workplace.

Huge thanks to Andy Locke and all the Team at G Live for hosting another fantastic event, Matt Clark, Fleur Manuel, Karin Gartzke and Jessamy Hadley for all their help and Support with putting the Away Day together, Susan McGuire for devising the workshops, and Duncan Bennetts for the show reels and filming.

If you’d like to receive your photo headshots from the day, please email Dave Bradbury to request them. 

Enjoy reading this month’s Ensemble. And until next time, take care of yourselves.
Best wishes
Rosemary