Nightlife performers are feeling increasingly unsafe at work, especially when alone.
From cabaret artistes and comedians to stage managers and singers, nightlife performers leave venues late at night, often travel long journeys on public transport or park and load in insecure locations with expensive equipment. Some venues lack the security staff to ensure performers feel safe on the stage itself.
This toolkit is a starting point to initiate your own Equity Safe Home campaign in your town, city, or region and win performers the protections they need to feel safe at work and when travelling to and from work. It’s an opportunity to expand the reach of the campaign, reach out to variety and nightlife workplaces and start to improve the culture of safety for our members in the workplace.
The campaign was first developed by members in Northern Ireland. IN 2026, our London Nightlife Network published the results of a workforce pay audit, which exposed the fact that high levels of workers are feeling less travelling to and from work than in previous years.
Equity Safe Home campaign asks
Our Safe Home campaign calls on hirers and employers to step up to their legal duties and introduce the protections needed to keep performers safe. Under Health and Safety at Work legislation, it is the principal duty of hirers and employers to secure the health, safety and welfare of employees and other people at their workplace.
Our campaign asks venues, managers, and promoters to agree to the following principles:
- Artists will be accompanied to their ongoing transport by 2 members of staff, unless they request otherwise
- Artists will be provided with reputable taxi firm numbers to arrange their transport.
- Payment for artists’ travel is made clear within their contract.
- When finishing late at night, particularly when normal public transport options are not available, it should be considered standard best practice for venues or promoters to reimburse the cost of a taxi home.
- If the venue has car parking, artists will be provided with a free car parking space on request.
Start with objectives
Objectives are the focus for any campaign. Everything else is built around these objectives and they make it possible to review how successful (or not) a campaign has been and whether we achieved what we wanted to.
The overarching Equity Safe Home campaign objective is for variety and nightlife performers to feel more safe at work, but also more empowered in their working life to negotiate for better terms.This key objective is a starting point for any campaign.
Beyond this, every venue is different, every town and city has its own challenges, and every group of Equity members has its own needs. When setting your local objectives, think about:
- Are your objectives realistic and achievable? When setting out objectives, it is important to ensure they are realistic and achievable. What you consider realistic and achievable will be different in different scenarios.
- What is the scope of your campaign? Is it a town, a city, a specific hub of venues, or a small target group of venues? This will depend on how many members/activists are involved and your time and capacity as a group.
- Will you focus on equal treatment? When researching your campaign, it is important to consider the rights of everyone to equal treatment under the Equality Act. Would you like your campaign to have a focus on Women’s safety, accessible venues, or race discrimination?
- Have you researched performers' concerns? Are there specific concerns amongst performers within the scope of your campaign?
Part of your research in developing a collective union campaign is about identifying the issues that are widely felt and deeply felt. It is important to utilise the experience and knowledge you have within your organising group.
And remember don’t bite off more than you can chew!
Make a plan
Creating a flexible plan with a timetable and with identified responsibilities means that everyone is aware of the intended progress of the campaign, can prepare for events and carry out their delegated tasks.
Who does the planning?
It’s up to the activists involved to agree to a campaign plan. Forming a sub-committee or working party within your branch to focus primarily on drawing up the plan may help. They can then take it to the rest of the branch for discussion and agreement. This can be an opportunity for new activists to get involved in branch activities beyond just the elected committee.
Getting the message across
You need to think about who your target audience is and what you want to tell them. There are many ways to spread a message, including briefings for activists and members, newsletters, workplace meetings, open meetings and social media such as Facebook and Instagram.
You can coordinate with Equity staff to develop campaign materials like graphics, posters, flyers, or stickers. This may require budgeting branch funds for the materials you need.
Building strategic relationships that are constructive and amicable with venues and engagers can go a long way towards achieving goals.
Recruitment is important
A well-planned and high-profile campaign shows that Equity is worth joining and shows members that their concerns are being addressed.
Those interested in joining Equity can find out about the benefits of joining on our website and join online here.
Evaluation
Reviewing is vital – it’s how we learn.
Think about how you might review activities. For instance: did you run a recruitment event, but nobody turned up? Where did you site it? What time was it there? How did you publicise it? Where did you publicise it?
Successes need to be shared with others. Report back to your branch committee or branch meeting. Branch officers should then also feedback to Equity staff and to other branches at national branch officer training days. And don’t forget to tell Equity’s comms team at website@equity.org.uk about your progress so that we can highlight campaigns to the wider union.
Further resources
The TUC publishes a pocket guide for organising and campaigning. This handy resource will be helpful for you when researching and planning your campaign in more detail.
