past | Present

The Corn Exchange Trust is now an arts organisation with responsibility for an ever-increasing range of diverse activities, attracting over 106,000 audience members annually.

Primarily it presents a broad programme of work that includes drama, contemporary dance, comedy, popular entertainment, non-professional and student productions, live music, film and physical theatre at The Corn Exchange building in Newbury town centre.

Additionally it manages New Greenham Arts, an arts centre which hosts the Cultivating Ideas programme - an artist development project, funded by Arts Council England. In addition to presenting occasional small-scale touring productions, the Trust also presents monthly cabaret and folk music clubs at New Greenham Arts, as well as providing an administrative base for Newbury Fringe, The Open Studios and Newbury District Arts Association. There are 9 visual artists in residence at New Greenham Arts, working in subsidised studio space.

While mainly focussing on working with young people, the work of the Community Arts department has become heavily film related (Children's Film Club and Cineclub after school film-making) as well as engaging with visual arts.

We continue to support the activities of Newbury Youth Theatre and Shining Lights Youth Theatre.

We produce the annual Newbury Comedy Festival - a weeklong event, featuring over 70 shows from the best UK and international comedy acts. We engage a London PR on this project and invest significant time and resources into this project. Since 2004, Vodafone has sponsored it, with other local businesses beginning to become associated.

We provide a ticket agency service for producers presenting work out with our two venues. We have become increasingly successful with this area, but face technology and space limitations.

The café at the Corn Exchange and restaurant at New Greenham Arts are both run by licence holders; the Trading Company has continued to operate the bar facilities, enjoying year on year growth in profits.

Finally, we are increasingly involved in co-commissioning new work, and premiering both UK and international productions at The Corn Exchange.

Download our Annual Report (2005/06)