About the Webinar:

Thinking about running your own performance night, scratch event, or other DIY platform?  

Join CDS Venue & Events Producer Sam Burkett for a practical webinar that breaks down the essentials of designing, planning, and producing small‑scale events.

We’ll explore how to shape the purpose of your night, understand who it’s for, and make decisions about scale, timing, and format. We’ll look at how to work with venues, navigate ticketing, and build the right team around you (even if it's just a pal!)

About Sam:

Sam Burkett (Venue & Events Producer) is a producer, dance artist, and comedian. They have been in the Artist Community at CDS since 2019. Their role focuses on supporting artists to engage with CDS and get their ideas off the ground alongside overseeing the day-to-day operations of the building.

Sam’s artistic practice sits in between dance and comedy, and their work has been shown in the UK and internationally. Their work has been supported by Arts Council England, Scottish Ballet, Dance Base (Edinburgh), Yorkshire Dance, and Leeds City Council among others.

About From Scratch: 

From Scratch is an initiative stemming from CDS's Scratch Renaissance project: designed to support the DIY performance scene by gathering and sharing the knowledge that often disappears once a night is over. Alongside this webinar series, we’re building the From Scratch Wiki: a shared resource that acts as part scrapbook, part guide, and part collective memory. It brings together behind‑the‑scenes insights from performers, audiences, and producers, offering practical tools, stories, templates, and reflections for anyone making things happen outside the mainstream. It’s a place for future DIY makers to learn from past successes (and failures) and to keep the spirit of independent performance platforms alive.

From Scratch is supported using public funding from Arts Council England.