Plug pulled on Ideas Tap

On June 2 the heavy door that stands between many young people and a career spent in the creative industries will close another inch. Since its foundation in December 2008, Ideas Tap has been so much more than an arts charity; it has been a beacon of hope for aspiring artists to whom the possibility of actually making a life out of their art might seem remote or inaccessible. Its closure marks a serious blow to cultural access for young people in the UK and this government’s lack of support for the organisation – though they repeatedly sought it – speaks volumes in its absence.

Ideas Tap accepted that the two things many young artists need – and struggle to find – at the beginning of their careers are money and contacts. The frameworks put in place to provide these led to the giving away of some £3.2 million in funding and direct access to networking, development and showcasing opportunities for over 62,000 of its members. But my enduring memory of IdeasTap will be its can-do attitude and infallible sense that the one thing a teenage street dancer from Glasgow, twenty-year old visual artist from Manchester and graduate theatre director from Bristol all deserve is a helping hand. The fact that that helping hand may come from any of the site’s 195,000 members – among whom the organisation actively worked to foster a sense of collaboration and community – makes the endeavour an even more special one.

The campaign to save Ideas Tap has been a vocal and impassioned one which continues apace on social media and one which I would encourage you to seek out. The fight is not over yet.  Crucially, if on June 3 the website is gone for good, I hope its many members will continue to embody the optimism and cooperation that fuelled it. Then, perhaps, we might not all be doomed after all.