This survey is for organisations involved in professional performing arts in Scotland.
The State of Play Organisations’ Survey aims to further expand upon the data collected through the parallel Workforce Survey to provide a clear profile of the sector’s scale, structure, reach, productivity and economic information, as well as trends and issues facing the sector.
Read on to learn more about the State of Play: Organisations’ Survey.
You do not have to be an FST Member to complete this survey.
The deadline for responses is Monday 4 October 2021.
You can find out more about the State of Play study here.

About the Organisations’ Survey
Aims of the Organisations’ Survey
This survey is for organisations involved in professional performing arts in Scotland – please nominate someone within the organisation to complete it.
Who should complete the Organisations’ Survey?
All professional performing arts* organisations – including micro-organisations and sole traders – who contract ‘staff’ (including freelancers), and engage audiences and participants, in performing arts productions and community projects.
*We are defining performing arts, in line with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport definition as ‘all forms of theatre, dance, musicals and opera performances’ and also creative education, participation, artistic creation and governance.
We would like to assure you that all the information we collect will be anonymous and confidential and used for statistics and research purposes only. It will not be possible to identify any particular organisation or individual in the results.
What to expect in completing the survey:
Outlined below is a short overview of the process of taking the survey. If you have any questions whilst taking it you can also get in touch with us at stateofplay@scottishtheatre.org
Survey site
When you click on the survey link you will be taken to an external survey site to complete the survey online.
Time to complete
Due to the level of detail we are looking to collect, we anticipate the survey will take an hour or more to complete. However, it is possible to save your progress and complete it over time. You can also share the saved link with colleagues for others to complete sections (to do this just click save at the bottom of the screen and you will be sent a personal link to your survey).
Preparing for the survey
The survey asks a series of questions about your organisation’s income and expenditure, employment and engagement figures. It would be helpful to gather that information before starting the survey.
A number of the questions in the survey reflect those asked in the Creative Scotland Annual Survey for RFO’s which you may have completed and be planning for – it may be useful to have the last copy of the CS annual survey to hand when you are completing this one.
In our survey we ask for data in years 2019-20 and 2020-21 as so much happened and changed across these 2 years it is important to gather that detail. We’re aware that Creative Scotland has not yet gathered their annual survey for the year 2020 – 21. We hope our survey is useful for you in prepping for the CS one.
View the survey in advance
If you’d like to see the survey questions in advance you can download a PDF version here, please note the survey will need to be completed and submitted online.
Survey Structure
There are 7 sections to complete in the Organisations’ Survey, and an optional 8th section detailed below:
1. Your organisation’s role and key details
2. Personnel and governance
3. Engaging with artists and freelancers
4. Programme and engagement
5. Finance
6. Policies and Working Practices
7. Looking to the future
8. [Optional] Awareness and experiences of Fair Work, Equalities practice, Climate Action and the role of Federation of Scottish Theatre.
Access requirements
If you require the survey in a different format or help to complete it, please get in touch with us at stateofplay@scottishtheatre.org
Can I share the survey?
YES, please do. We want the survey to be as representative of the sector as possible and would encourage you to forward the survey link or any FST emails to organisations that may not hold a current FST Membership.
Complete the Survey
Thank You
We are hugely grateful to everyone taking the time to complete this survey – the information will be invaluable for future planning and advocacy.
Any questions?
If you have any further questions or enquiries regarding State of Play and its corresponding surveys then please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at stateofplay@scottishtheatre.org