This Summer, We’re Making Space For Joy
/Read time: 5-6 mins
Toby Ealden, Zest’s Artistic Director & CEO, shares how Zest’s summer programme is bringing public space to life for young people
This summer, we’re going big. The Zone is going on tour – and Sound Board, our new genre-bending show, is hitting the road. But this isn’t just a programme drop – it’s a response to a world that too often tells young people they don’t belong.
“Joy isn’t a distraction from the hard stuff – it’s a way through it.”
Right now, young people are facing a crisis. This won’t be new information for people who follow our work - we’ve been saying the same thing for ages. Mental health challenges are rising, safe public spaces are shrinking, and support systems are vanishing. But being a young person should still be freeing. It should be fun and joyful. There should be space to play, express, and rest – to be messy, brilliant, and free – without cost, judgment, or pressure.
That joy isn’t a distraction from the hard stuff – it’s a way through it. So, this summer, we’re making space for that. We’re offering platforms for unity and creativity – for communities to come together, to have fun but also grapple with the big stuff, for young people to lead, and for connection to grow.
The Zone: A Test of Concept That’s Now on the Move
Young People Party at The Zone 2024 in Lincoln
What began as a bold, slightly terrifying test of concept in Lincoln City Centre in the summer of 2024 is now an award-winning project on the move.
We had a vision for The Zone – a free, welcoming public space for young people to chill, create, and be – but had no guarantees it would work. Our co-producers and fast architecture specialists, AirClad, got involved, bringing their stunning design and expertise to make it a reality. It was big, bold, and risky, but it worked. We had nearly 1,000 visits in our first summer. A third of those had never engaged in arts or culture before.
Young people consistently told us there weren’t enough spaces to feel safe, seen, and connected in Lincoln. The Zone was built from years of listening – shaped by the voices of 1,500 young people and supported through research commissioned by City of Lincoln Council and University of Lincoln and funded by Arts Council England and Historic England. Its 2024 and 2025 delivery in Lincoln is backed by the National Lottery Community Fund’s Million Hours Fund and Lincolnshire Co-op.
This summer, The Zone returns to Lincoln for a full 7 week holiday run, with over 200 hours of free youth arts work in City Square. Local creatives will lead everything from poetry, dance, and visual art to youth club staples like table tennis, gaming, and space to just chill. No pressure. You do you.
Now, shaped by Lincoln and shared beyond, Zest will deliver a further 120 hours of youth arts work across Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire this summer. We’ll also pop up in Mansfield (May half term), Sleaford (June and September), and Newark (July), working with brilliant partners. Mansfield District Council – a fellow National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) – will host us in the Market Place. In Sleaford, we’re working with North Kesteven District Council to animate their newly regenerated Market Place. In Newark, we’re collaborating with Newark Book Festival to engage new audiences.
In each place, local artists will show young people the best of their local scene. At some locations, we’re also working with local businesses to provide free food and drink for young people because sometimes, art engagement starts with Pizza or Bubble Tea.
Sound Board: A new show Shaped by You in Real Time
Running alongside The Zone is Sound Board – a new show reimagining our touring work.
Imagine a chat show, a game show, and a theatre performance combined - that’s Sound Board! It’s a live experience fuelled by young voices and shaped live in the moment. It starts with live conversations and games, but where it ends? That’s up to the audience!
No two shows will be the same. Created by Tanya Akrofi, Rob Green, Dan Morgan, Claire Gaydon, and me, collaborating with young people in each tour location, it blends community conversation, games, and performance into something alive and unexpected.
The audience makes choices throughout, helping to decide what themes the show explores, what topics are discussed, and, ultimately, how it concludes. One moment, you could be in an exciting discussion with other community members, the next, dancing through confetti.
Sound Board is a space where big topics and brilliant silliness can sit side by side. It holds space for it all – the fun, the questions, the contradictions. There is no single route through, just a seemingly endless set of possibilities. Where the show goes (and how it ends) is part of the experience. We figure it out together.
Verity Quinn’s colourful set frames the space and captures the energy, inviting the audience in and making room for whatever unfolds.
Sound Board was created with The Zone in mind. It premieres at The Zone in Mansfield, then tours 6 festivals across the country (full tour dates announced soon) – plus a stop at The Zone in Lincoln! It’s our way of testing what occurs when live performance meets public space, turning The Zone into a venue in its own right.
Excellence and Access: The Same Thing
There’s been much debate recently around Arts Council England’s Let’s Create strategy – that it prioritises investment of public money in engagement over artistic excellence as if somehow the two can’t happen together. But we don’t buy that. We believe this work is both.
“Young people don’t care what you call it; they care whether it connects”
There are real challenges. Spiralling costs, rising demand, and a lack of sustainable funding for artists are making things tough across the sector. We feel it too, and we’re frustrated for colleagues doing brilliant work under increasing pressure.
But this season of work is only possible because of public funding, and that’s worth celebrating! This summer’s programme is high-quality, values-led, and reaches communities that are too often underserved.
It doesn’t come with the cost of tickets or evening performance times that rule young people out because the buses have stopped running - a real issue in many of the small towns we tour. This season is shaped by communities in the community– made with care, rigour, and intention. Much of this work may not look like theatre as you know it, but it’s working. Most young people don’t care what you call it, what form it takes, or what box it falls into; they care whether it connects. Whether it’s real.
The Love and Light of Creativity
“This summer is about creating those moments of expression, pride, and community. It is a season of hope without denial, joy without avoidance, and unity in the face of division.”
Earlier this month, our Youth Advisory Board Future Proof spoke at Arts Council England’s ‘Engaging Communities in Arts and Culture’ conference at The Lowry in Salford. They talked about mental health, growing up in uncertain times, and what happens when creativity enters the picture.
Future Proof member Cas Potterton described young people’s inherent creativity as “the love and light of creativity.” And that’s it. This summer is about expression, pride and community – a season of hope without denial, joy without avoidance, and unity in the face of division.
We know the world won’t change in one summer, and the pressures young people face aren’t going away overnight. But our work can offer a glimpse of something else - a moment of what could be. We’re creating spaces where truth can be spoken, challenges explored, and dancing, dreaming, and togetherness can happen too.
This work is joyful, made with care, and shared with purpose. We can’t wait to bring it to life.
