Artwork by Kidda Kinsey
Emerging Artist Call Out
The People’s Parade 7th June 2025
The People’s Parade is a family friendly free event being delivered by Stoke-on-Trent City Council in partnership with Stoke Creates and supported by Arts Council England. The parade will feature around 1000 performers and attract an anticipated audience of around 50,000.
The People’s Parade will celebrate Stoke-on-Trent’s first 100 years of cityhood, whilst also looking forward to the next 100 years. It is approximately a 1.5-mile walking, pushing, electric parade starting from Stoke College, Cauldon Road ending within Hanley Park itself, having journeyed through the cultural quarter and the City Centre.
Artists
We are looking to engage ‘emerging’ local artists to work alongside a Lead Artist on delivery of a series of creative and participatory workshops across the local community.
The aim of the sessions will be to create pieces of site dressing, wearable pieces, such as headdresses, and parade decorations based on the themes within the People’s Parade.
You will be working alongside a lead artist to support workshops in local communities across Stoke-on-Trent.
We expect to work with artists from across a range of art forms. It could be that you are a textile artist interested in learning how your skills could be applied to making large scale, wearable art works. Or a propmaker interested in learning how to create sustainable, lightweight puppets. Or a visual artist looking to enhance their ability to deliver workshops to local community groups.
By ‘emerging artists’ we mean creative practitioners of any age, that are looking to make a step change in their career, whether that be because they are transitioning between artforms, looking to develop new skills, or possibly recently entered the workplace. We are particularly interested in hearing from people who are currently underrepresented in the outdoor arts sector.
Applicants should:
- Be based in Stoke-on-Trent and North Staffordshire (or with connections to the area)
- Working in an art form that could be applied to a parade event
- Interested in developing their creative practice, whether that be in terms of scale, art-form, or skills.
- Have sufficient availability throughout April, May and early June to be able to commit to 5 days delivery of community facing workshops. Working days will be mutually agreed between yourself and Stoke Creates. Please note some evening and weekend working may be required.
- Be available on 7th June to be at the Parade, supporting your community groups where necessary.
- Have their own public liability insurance (this can be in place after your appointment)
HOW TO APPLY
Please send
- a CV
- a short explanation (max. 500 words) of your creative practice and why you are interested in supporting the People’s Parade.
This can be shared in any format you feel comfortable including a video application, audio application or something more visual. Please email these to stoke100@stokecreates.org.uk
Fee:
We can offer an inclusive fee of £900 for your work on this project, this is based on a rate of £150/day, 5 days’ workshop delivery and then the event day itself.
Closing Date:
The closing date for applications is Monday 14th April at 5pm.
Following your application, we will be in touch regarding next steps.
Interviews:
We will be inviting some applicants to attend interviews to discuss their applications further. These will be a mix of in person and online interviews, to suit applicants. Interviews will be being held on Wednesday 16th April.
Any further information
If you require any further information or need to tell us anything that will assist you in making an application please email stoke100@stokecreates.org.uk
