Featured News

The Ticket Bank reports positive impact of charitable ticket scheme

Ticketing donation scheme The Ticket Bank has found through a research pilot conducted by LifePsychol that its programme decreases depression, anxiety and stress levels.

The Ticket Bank, created by the Tickets for Good Foundation, aims to provide tickets to individuals who suffer from a combination of linked problems such as unemployment, poor skills, low incomes, poor housing, high crime environments, bad health or family breakdown so that they can experience the benefits that participation in the cultural arts can bring.

Tickets for Good have so far donated over 1,500 tickets to individuals through various charity and social inclusion organisations.

The small-scale study, which is based on participant surveys, revealed that the percentage of individuals reporting depression fell from 56 per cent prior to receiving tickets to 36 per cent following the event. Anxiety reports fell from 46 per cent to 36 per cent and reports of stress decreased to 21 per cent from 50 per cent previously.

Overall, 92 per cent of ticket recipients offered “highly positive qualitative” feedback, according to the report.

For the study, LifePsychol designed three questionnaires for ticket recipients to complete. Each questionnaire included general questions about mental health and wellbeing, which offers the ability to quantify the mental health needs of respondents and then make comparisons against three time points; before they know about the event, once they’ve received a ticket, and after attending an event.

Miriam Silver, consultant clinical psychologist and clinical director at LifePsychol, said: “It is a great pleasure to collaborate with TfG, evaluating the mental health impact of receiving tickets to gigs and events on individuals from vulnerable and excluded population groups.

“The pilot showed encouraging results, and we hope that when we have data from a larger number of ticket recipients we can understand whether and how this impacts on their mood, view of the future, and perception of belonging, which are critical variables in our health and wellbeing.”

According to the report, the qualitative feedback found that recipients indicated they felt more confident, had more to look forward to, and had more positive memories in anticipation of, and following, the event.