Hyde Festival Theatre Volunteer Programme

Every volunteer starts on our Bar and Front of House team. You would be customer facing and serving refreshments before every performance, during the interval and after the performance. 

In addition, you will be a part of our front of house team, selling programmes, raffle tickets, helping customers to their seat but more importantly, you are there for the safety of our patrons.

You can volunteer as much as you can. But we do ask every person on our programme to do one shift every calendar month

and extra time at our busiest periods in June, July, November and December.

After training, you would be enrolled onto our app, which shows all available shifts in the upcoming months. We try and keep shifts open on the app for at least the next two months, you would then claim an available shift that suits you, in your spare time. If you need to swap after claiming a shift, our volunteers group is the place to go and we are sure someone will be able to swap with you.

Not at all - full training is provided.

Fill out the enrolment form below selecting which training date you can attend. Attend the session and we will get you enrolled on our app during the session so you can start collecting your volunteer hours immediately. 

We will have to ask for a lot of personal information at the session as  we will be conducting a DBS check on our volunteers. This is because you may have to access backstage at the theatre where children may be performing.

We recognise our volunteers by how many hours they can give to the theatre. We reward our volunteers with significant milestone badges depending on how many hours they do. We provide full training and uniform. We reward all of our volunteers with a complimentary drink after their shift. If volunteers select a front of house shift, they get to see performances from local groups and societies. We also organise volunteer social events, discounts and complimentary tickets for performances too!

Most importantly, you will be a part of our amazing team that we recognise. You will be keeping the theatre open and our pricing structure at the theatre affordable to local patrons and groups. As the theatre is a registered charity, all of the income from bar profits and hire fees go back into the upkeep of the building as no-one is paid at the theatre. We are an open, friendly team.

As soon as you have joined the volunteer programme, you will be able to access other roles in the theatre including Box Office Support, Chaperoning and Stage Crew to name a few. We always encourage our volunteers to become Bar Team Leaders and Front of House Managers when they have some experience.

Unfortunately, as our new-entrant role is 'Bar and Front of House' we can only accept applications from those aged 18 and over as they will be expected to serve alcohol on our bar without authorisation from a fellow colleague. Contact the secretary if you are aged 16 or 17 as you still may be able to help with our Front of House team.

You will require a smart phone or computer to access our app to see available shifts. In order to be trained on the bar, the bar is on the first floor without stairs. If you cannot use stairs, please inform us beforehand as we may be able to train you at a separate session on the ground floor and you can be a member of our Front of House team.

In order to become a volunteer at the theatre, for the safety of our theatre users and patrons - all of our volunteers will need to undergo a DBS check. The theatre will fund this however, you will need to commit to at least five shifts for the theatre. You will also need to subscribe yourself to the DBS Update Service once the check has been completed.