The Soapbox
A guide on how to include the Soapbox in your event.
What is the Soapbox?
The Soapbox is literally that – something to stand on and talk! It offers a platform for the work already happening on the ground in the area, to support, highlight and bring awareness to these ‘good neighbours’ who make the place special.
Interspersed between workshops, performance, or just over lunch, you can invite local community organisers and groups onto the Soapbox to talk about their work, to inspire and invite the audience to participate in good work.
There is so much good happening in this country that goes unheard and unseen – the Soapbox is an opportunity to change this. When we hear from the people working to make a better future for us all, there is hope, and many ways to get involved in creating a future of care and freedom.
What you need
- Your local community groups / projects / independent creative projects/ campaigns etc
- Any event
How to host the Soapbox at your event
Set up
- In advance of the event, get in contact with local community groups, ask around, go down a rabbit hole, try and get as diverse a range of people as possible. It might be community centres, local arts projects, food banks, activists, people working in democracy, inviting them to be on the soap box.
- You want about 5 / 6 for a gig with 3 acts, if doing a music gig
- You can have any number popping up over the day of a Fête
Prep the soap box speakers with these notes:
- “You will have TWO minutes on the box. This is an opportunity to talk about the work you do, to invite the audience to support you and the work and to invite people to engage with and make use of your work, all depending on what they can offer.”
- Some prompts they may think about are:
- Intro: who are you and what do you do?
- How did you get into this work?
- What you love about the local area?
- What is a call to action for the room, how can they get involved/ support your work?
How to run the soap box
At a gig / festival / music set
- As soon as a set has finished (in order to capture the attention gathered by the music)
- In between sets have the speakers stand on the soap box and give their short talk
- Introduce each of the speakers, their name and project name
At a festival amongst the crowd
- Find areas that are busy and organise for soap boxes in these locations at these times
At an event
- Intersperse the soap boxes throughout the day at opportunities where people are most gathered together and you have the largest captive audience. For example after a performance, or a talk, or at locations within the event where there are the largest gatherings of people
- Announce the speakers, their name and project name and then welcome them onto the soapbox
At a street party
- Whenever you have a captive audience, include soapbox speakers. If you have tables, if they are short enough for everyone to hear, have them stand at the head of the table, if you tables are long, have the soap boxes positioned in the middle of the tables, find a time where everyone is sat.
Capturing the soap box at the event
Send your video / photos to the Fête to be part of the national soap box conversation, and collab on Insta and TikTok.
Make sure to have someone videoing the soapboxes, that way people can refer back to the messages, calls to action and contacts of the soap box speakers, as well as ensuring the possibility of sharing the message to a wider audience.
Share the videos and photos of the soapboxes, with tags to the organisers socials/ contacts etc.