SARAH ROBERTSON: Good afternoon everybody. I'm Sarah Robertson. I'm the communications and special projects Director at Colston Hall in Bristol. I'm here representing an organisation that has been dealing with an issue at the front line of inclusion and diversity. I want to talk about how sometimes making real change means doing something that is big, scary, and controversial. Sometimes, taking the nuclear option and dealing with the fall out is the only way to make progress. Colston Hall run by Bristol Music Trust is the South West's largest concert hall since we left the control of Local Authority in 2011 we have been on a journey changing our programme from one that used to serve a predominantly white audience with events like wrestling to one that is seen as one of the most innovative in the country with a changing audience profile to match. Furthermore, our education and engagement work especially with musicians who have special educational needs and disabilities is a National exemplar at our level. Our city Bristol, is the fastest growing city in the UK and one of the most diverse. 91 languages are spoken within it's boundaries and 16 percent of Bristol citizens are classed as BAME. The city is also one of the most unequal in the country. The latest Runneymede report states non-white Bristolians gain fewer academic qualifications in the city's schools and find fewer opportunities in the local job market compared to the city's white communities. In recent years, Bristol has undergone profound cultural changes that has left our city questioning what it means to be a Bristolian and who we welcome in to the city. Ironically, this multiculturalism is often cited as a huge factor in the current attractiveness of the city. In 2017, we were called one of rough guide's top 10 global cities they said we are a small city that thinks like a big city. However, this thinking like a big city has not extended to addressing an issue that is at the centre of Bristol's politics and culture and is at odds with it's free thinking attitude. In a society that is more politically and socially aware, it is an issue that is becoming more urgent to address, and is one that our organisation is intrinsically bound up in: The issue is slavery. Bristol is a city whose wealth to a large extent was created on the back of the transatlantic slave trade. Merchants in the city made huge profits from the trading of
goods to Africa and the sale of captive Africans who were enslaved and sold to plantation owners in the Americas, profits produced such as coffee and sugar and tobacco came straight back to Bristol merchants - the city benefitted hugely from the triangular movement of captive enslaved humans and goods, and made some families immensely wealthy. One of those made rich by this trade was Edward Colston. Born in 1636 he was English merchant who saw the opportunity of making money that the trade in captive enslaved people and related goods are forwarded. In 1680 he became a member of the Royal African Company that held the monopoly in Britain in trading in gold ivory and people enslaved. By 1689 he was in it's most senior position. Although there were other families in Bristol involved in the slave trade, Colston is the one we remember: Because he was a noted philanthropist with the city being the main beneficially, he founded houses in Kings street and on saint Michael's Hill and schools and even had a one named after him. He, even today, his name is a prominent feature of Bristol life with streets offices and schools named after him. In 1895 a statue of him was erected in the city centre that states: Erected by citizens of Bristol as a memorial of one of the most virtuous and wise sons of their city. So, what do the events of 350 years ago have to do with the concert hall whose previous most controversial stories were the Beatles being flour bombed on our stage and Lemmy from Motorhead enjoying a smoke of a different kind in our dressing rooms! Our hall is one of the civic buildings that was given the name Colston. The Hall as it currently stands was built in 1867, and we have just celebrated 150th birthday. This is about 150 years after Colston himself died and just before his statue was erected in the city centre. This commemoration was just what the civic leaders of the Victorian era did at the time: named the Hall after the city's most famous and venerated benefactor. No Colston money was put in to the building or founding of Colston Hall. Our only connection with the man is his name above our door and on our website and brochures and tickets, but we have become part of the snowballing idea of re-thinking how, who, and what we memorialise.
In the US, Confederate statues and memorials have become a hot bed of protest. And re-evaluation, Oxford university students recently called for and failed to achieve removal of the statue of the imperialist Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College. Its also Bristol has done less than other major cities such as Liverpool to correct the difficult past. David Olusoga stated in The Guardian in 2017: No city is more woefully blink to history than Bristol. He also said memory of Colston has become a front line of battle for historic soul of Bristol in a place which has not provided many other out lets for debate and re-evaluation. We have the disquiet and unease of a whole city placed squarely on our shoulders. I'm not an academic or a historian, I cannot stand here and talk at a high level about what this means for our city and the wider context nationally and even internationally. But what I can do is speak about what being part of this debate has meant for our concert hall. We have had to think hard about our role now and in the future and more importantly what our audiences want us to be and do, what is our role as a civic building and cultural institution in these changing times? I have worked at Colston Hall for a long time and throughout this time there has always been desire to change our name. This feeling came much more to the fore in 2011 when we became Bristol Music Trust and in the words of our Chief Executive Louise Mitchell started to become a grown up arts organisation. It was a regular topic at trustee meetings, and our senior managers always knew that we would need to confront the issue sooner rather than later. In the past, we always had the fixed point of our coming capital build as a moment to address the issue. In June 2018 we are closing for TWO years, 48.8 million pounds transformation of Main Hall and historic lantern building. Seemed logically time to address what we knew would be a controversial issue. We also knew many audience members did not want the Hall to change it's name, and the Hall has a fond place in the hearts of many Bristolians: They attended their first concert with us, had their first kiss under our awning and even met their husband or wife on the dance floor. The name Colston is bound up in these highly personal histories and it was hard to separate these feelings and memories from the name. In a poll in The Post in our local newspaper in February 2017 readers voted 2 to 1 to
keep the name Colston. Our inboxes and post bag attested to this point of view. And in hindsight we should have been more proactive in dealing with the issue head on and speaking to communities and local leaders about our desire to change, and bringing them on board. But we were nervous about signalling our intentions before we were ready. At this time we still had not really owned the issue or made a conscious decision to take it on. Honestly, we were scared about dealing with something so big, and the pressure of dealing with it alone had made us retreat from it even more. So at the beginning of 2017 we were still under the name Colston. During this time, there was an undercurrent of low level unrest with certain organisations and people in the city. We knew some high level business leaders would not come to our concerts because of the name. Our figures for BAME attendance were lower than we wanted - that was attributed in part to people feeling shame and embarrassment about the name being used on our Hall. Of course, we knew about the musicians: Massive Attack: Bristol's biggest musical export who very publicly said they would not perform at the city's main music venue when it was under the banner of a slave trader. In early 2017 things happened to bring the issue more sharply in to our focus: A long serving and valued member of staff team who is black told us that some of her family members will not come to the Hall, her place of work, because of the name. Then came the protests. An an organisation called Countering Colston had been working in the city with aim of redressing imbalance of recognition and remembrance given to people like Colston over those who suffered as victims of the slave trade and those who are still suffering because of it's legacy. We have been the target of protests many times over the years. But this one was different: More organised and went much wider, with most of the national newspapers and news outlets picking up on the story. For an organisation that wanted to change, dealing with oppressed crisis that laced for a fortnight during our busiest period was hard. Especially for staff who had to
read the critical artists and respond to negative social media posts. We rode the storm but we could increasingly see that in order to maintain credibility with audiences and city we had to move quickly. The name was becoming the elephant in the room growing and growing, sucking out the air and clouding the rest of our good work. We knew that the time had come to confront the issue and plan to announce our intention to change. During the next few months we worked across teams with comms consultant Gill Kirk and PR agency to develop a strategy for announcing name change and packing up with action. How were we going to use this move to effect real and lasting change for our audiences organisations and city? Our Chief Executive made the announcement in April 2017, backed by unanimous Board support and in a room including Paul Stevenson the civil rights campaigner who led the Bristol bus boycott in 1960s that led to implementation of the first Race Relations Act, Louise's statement was clear: Bristol Music Trust had earned the right to remove the controversy and negative associations around the name and create a positive and forward looking future for the Hall and the people of Bristol. She acknowledged that it is an extremely emotive issue for a lot of Bristolians, we know some people will not like this move, but we must do what we are here for to bring music to the people of Bristol and not be held back. She made it clear that the name Colston does not reflect our values as a progressive forward thinking and open arts organisation. She said that we wanted the whole city to be proud of it's transformed concert hall so that it would not be right to re-open the building using 48.8 million some of which is public money, under the name Colston. The news went International and National, and the following days became challenging - our team have experienced social feeds comments and reacting - much of the comments were negative and in some cases offensive. The number of letters we received quadrupled overnight with some regular attenders saying they would never attend a concert at the hall again or give money to our transformation appeal. We were accused of erasing and censoring history. Could we not leave the name
and use it to highlight and remember the city's past? No matter how unpleasant? For the record: We are talking about Colston and the name in an exhibition in our new lantern building. Our argument, we are a music venue not a monument. We were told we were wrong to use the morals of today to judge the actions of the past. One letter commented in Edward Colston's time all business and domestic affairs relied on slaves and the slave trade. It was as much a part of life as Amazon is to us today. Vector 63 commented on The Posts website this should be decided by the people of Bristol, not by some left-wing lobbies of the PC brigade known as the Trustees. I back most were never even born in Bristol, are more than likely vegans and followers of Nick Clegg! {Laughter}. We were accused of dredging up a past that people thought should rather be forgotten, and we can laugh at some of these comment and reactions, but for us the fall out has had immediate and ongoing impact on fundraising advocacy in some groups in the city. But it was clear what we were doing was significant. And an article in The Guardian quoted Nicholas Draper Director of the centre for study of legacies of Bristol slavery ownership like UCL. He said: Renaming of Colston Hall is probably the first significant change in UK: There will be others. And that quote I mentioned earlier from David Olusoga; it actually finished like this, the memory of Colston has become a front line in battle of Bristol's historic soul, this week those line shifted seismically. What we did, as with Brexit, hit a nerve with social media placing so much value on individual stories and opinions, those whose voices are not heard are pushed to the margins. For these people, it was never really about the name, we were taking away something that was important to them and they wanted their views to be heard. We became the focus of those missing voices on both sides of the argument. Actually, finding an outlet for these unheard voices sounds like the beginnings of an artistic strategy to me. Of course, everything I have just talked about is not really what matters what counts is what we do now. What action are we taking to use this change to talk to our
audience and find out what kinds of arts organisation they need us to be? Now, because we are all friends, will be honest with you again: We felt so battered and bruised by the reaction after announcement we did not take action quick enough, we had to retreat and take a deep breath and re-group. Now we are ready to take it on. We talk a lot in the arts about removing barriers to attendance. The name Colston acted as a symbolic barrier between our organisation and potential audiences, affecting our confidence to go out and speak to certain communities with honesty and on an equal footing. Now this barrier has been removed we can really start to address the Creative Case for diversity in our organisation and make important changes to what we do. We are starting with the music. Looking at our artistic policy to ensure our programme is diverse, welcoming and reflective of our city. For example, from this summer we are taking our programme beyond the walls of the hall directly in to the community we serve. We have commissioned a leading composer to write a major new opera for the re-opening of the transformed Hall based on journey of a refugee and using individual stories in the city. We also want to appoint a BAME creative producer to bring new insights in to our programme. We are working with artistic partners like St. Pauls carnival and Bristol Old Vic to commission and develop work that reflects our city and looks to it's positive future, and we are championing and developing upcoming urban artists through multi-track interindustry programme. We are being carefully to listen to those who might feel angry about our name change. At our 150th birthday in September, we remembered the individual stories and celebrated the important role that the Hall has played in our audience's personal histories. We have made a commitment to engage more with all of our audiences and will be talking to them throughout our name change process to ensure that it is transparent and representative. We want to reach audiences who might now feel we can be part of their cultural lives. Even more significantly in September we are launching National Centre for Inclusive
Excellence. This is a National programme that will explore the civic role of music and the arts and the impact on individuals communities and societies. It is supported by YouthMusic using funding from the National Lottery via Arts Council England. Our name change has had an impact across the city. Other arts organisations are thinking more deeply about inclusion and representation, and Colston's primary school has debated the issue with their pupils and parents, and the teachers and have taken the decision to change their name as well. We are determined to be part of these wider conversations. All of this means that Bristol Music Trust is well-placed to respond to issues raised in the Runneymede report, as a civic institution we have a responsibility to take up the challenge of addressing inequities in our city. My organisation has had to get comfortable with the uncomfortable; with the history that we would rather not think about. Our wrestling with the issue mirrors that of the city making sense of the past and what it means in the present and future. And ours is an extreme example, but there are lessons for diversity and inclusion that everyone can take on board. Get ready for a list. Ignore communities at your peril, listen to those whose voices are hidden, be proactive and address any elephants in the room before they become too big to deal with. Ask for help, who are your allies and how can they advocate for you? Don't carry the burden alone. Be clear about the story and your place within it. My final piece of advice would be this: If you have an issue that is big and scary as ours - own it. If it is yours to deal with, it is yours to deal with. It is not going to go away as much as you wish it would. Trust me I know. Take it on, loudly and proudly. I'm standing here as proof that by taking the difficult path you can come out the other side - unscathed, unfortunately not. Stronger and wiser: Without a doubt. {Applause}.