Open Call for Audience Campaigns: Spielraum – the 2025 Berlin Days of the Independent Performing Arts Community)

The Berlin Days of the Independent Performing Arts Community event is entering its second round!

During the period of time from September 10 to September 21, 2025, we once again would like to present the diversity of Berlin’s independent performing arts community to a broad audience. In doing so, the focus will be placed on the locations of the independent performing arts community as places for encounters between a variety of audiences and communities, as places for exchanges as well as for societal transformation.

We would like to invite the operators of Berlin’s performance venues of the independent performing arts community to send us contributions for the upcoming schedule of events for the Berlin Days of the Independent Performing Arts Community. Contributions from other actors in the scene, as well as from related fields such as socio culture or urban practice, are also welcome. Specifically, we are looking for opportunities that take place during the period of time named alongside and with the regular programming on stage and which invite the audience to get to know Berlin’s independent performing arts community and its locations from an unusual perspective. Things that are imaginable include public rehearsals with suitable exchange formats, open houses, tours of performance venues, participatory formats in public space, experimental mediation formats as well as late night and party formats. Accessible options for performances such as tactile tours, audio descriptions or relaxed performances are also welcome.

It does not matter whether these opportunities and offerings were already planned or were conceived especially for the Berlin Independent Performing Arts Community Days - the main point is that an ancillary schedule of programming that is as diverse as possible and which is attractive to Berlin’s civic society and has the potential to lead a new audience to the community is created.

The Berlin Independent Performing Arts Community Days is an annual campaign that is created jointly by the community and coordinated by the Berlin Performing Arts Program. Alongside taking the responsibility for organizing an opening event and making the community work of the independent performing arts community visible from a cultural policy standpoint, the Berlin Performing Arts Program especially takes on the comprehensive advertising and promotion of a schedule of programming bundled into one calendar of events. The archive of programming from last year can be seen on the website of the Berlin Independent Performing Arts Community Days: freie-szene-tage.de/en

We are offering a digital information session for all questions about the orientation of the Berlin Independent Performing Arts Community Days and the open call for audience campaigns on March 31, 2025, as well as on April 3, 2025, before the expiration of the deadline for submissions.

Application Criteria

What Are We Looking For?

For the 2025 Berlin Independent Performing Arts Community Days, we are on the lookout for communication and audience campaigns coming from Berlin’s Independent Performing Arts Community that…

• Take place during the time period from September 10 to September 21, 2025, and take place alongside the regular artistic programming
• Will be conducted independently by the performance venues or producing organizations and/or the theater makers – it is unfortunately not possible for the Berlin Performing Arts Program to provide any organizational or financial support
• Invite the audience to get to know Berlin’s independent performing arts community from an unusual perspective and which allow access for a new audience with as few barriers as possible
• Are suitable for continuing a sustainable relationship with the respective audience or for beginning one
• Have independent content and that can be announced with their own respective starting times
• Accessible options for performances such as tactile tours, audio descriptions or relaxed performances are also welcome

Who Is This Call Intended For?

• This is primarily intended for the operators of performance venues and producing organizations within Berlin’s independent performing arts community
• Suitable suggestions from additional players, also from associated fields, are also welcome

Why Are We Initiating the Berlin Independent Performing Arts Community Days?

• With an annual community-wide campaign, we would like to communicate the diversity of Berlin’s independent performing arts community to Berlin’s civil society in a targeted manner and, while doing so, get new groups of audience members excited about the independent performing arts community with a programming focus on audience campaigns.

What Do We Offer?

• A comprehensive coordination of all offerings and the announcement and promotion in an inter-community campaign
• Content-based exchange between the providers that are involved in the campaign
• Cultural policy visibility of the community work of Berlin’s independent performing arts community
• Digital information session for all questions about the orientation of the Berlin Independent Performing Arts Community Days and the open call for audience campaigns on March 31, 2025, 4 pm to 5 pm, as well as on April 3, 2025, 11 am to 12 pm. Please register by March 27, 2025, stating the time slot and any questions you may have, to spielraum [at] pap-berlin.de

What Should Be Submitted?

• Title of the offering/event
• Date and time of the offering
• A short description of the offering (ca. 700-900 characters incl. spaces)
• Contact details: contact person, e-mail address, telephone number

Application Deadline:

• Please submit your ideas by April 27, 2025, to: spielraum [at] pap-berlin.de