Starting on Earth Day 2023 (22 April), the episodes will be released once a week on podcast platforms. They will also be featured in Listening Parties around the world organised by our co-producing theatre companies – and they are available for you to host your own listening party!
Listening Parties offer an enjoyable and active shared experience as well as a discussion platform for the thorny issues highlighted in the plays. Humans have been doing versions of listening parties through many different eras. Family and community have gathered around campfires for thousands of years to tell each other stories. Before TV, many families gathered around the radio to listen to radio dramas. The experience of listening together to an audio drama has many things in common with going to live theatre. It also has exciting differences: the added intimacy of being more present with others throughout, with more side chatter and shared reactions, since there is not the visual focus of watching a stage.
Impact is at the heart of the Climate Change and Other Small Talk project, and we encourage everyone to host a listening party to gather people around shared concerns, enliven climate campaigns and turn curiosity into action. Episodes are each around 15-25 minutes long, which makes it easy to present 2 or 3 in the same event.
Hosting a Listening Party can be as simple as a book club - getting a group of friends together and listening to the episodes over drinks or food - all the way to a more elaborate event.
The following are a few examples of presentation formats. We invite you to mix and match ideas to create your own bespoke event!
Forum: a hosted communal listening experience in a theatre or community space, followed by a panel with local activists, climate scientists, policy makers and/or artists.
Intergenerational activity: a gathering at a school or senior home with a group of teenagers and seniors to listen together and discuss issues to find common ground for action across the age divide.
Podcast Club: like the audio version of a book club, a social experience with snacks or drinks, which could be hosted in a different living room, café or library for each episode.
Idea Fair: a community fair for local climate and climate justice groups with tables and/or wall space to display their campaigns and with a schedule of episodes and talks available to listen to in a separate room.
Audio Installation: in a gallery or event space, with episodes available to listen from headphones, with prompts in between to engage in conversation with other people.
Walk & Talk: an itinerary in a park or quiet streets planned to alternate listening simultaneously to an episode and stopping for discussion in places that highlight local initiatives.
Classroom Curriculum: a programme designed around science, social or climate curriculum themes to link together our audio plays from all over the world with school topics. Link up with a local climate organisation to invite a guest speaker or with a theatre club to invite young people to create their own climate drama.
We want the episodes to be used widely to channel people into climate action, so we are offering a tiered licensing starting at no cost for grassroot groups.
To use one or all episodes for your listening party:
Your financial support will go towards paying royalties to our artists and to our impact work to get the word out about the series.
Even if you are paying $0, you will need to fill in this quick form. It allows us to understand how people are using the episodes.
For any of the above sliding scale rates, you cannot charge the audience for tickets. You can however raise money to donate to climate campaigns (see below), or to cover the costs of your licensing donation.
Theatres and arts companies paying professional licensing fees will be able to charge audiences for tickets – contact us to discuss.
At your Listening Party, we encourage you to collect donations for local climate groups and campaigns. Be clear about who the money is being raised for and why that is a powerful way to support movements.
As there are so many ways to host a Listening Party, it’s important to set expectations and help people be prepared for the experience.
Be it a small gathering in your living room or a public event at a library or theatre, planning ahead will help to create a seamless experience where people feel welcome and where they can truly participate.
Consider who you want to come and what their needs are when crafting your invitation. They may want to know when exactly to arrive, how interactive the experience will be, if they need to bring anything – their own headphones, a cushion, food to share…
What accessibility features can be organised and communicated in advance to help people plan for their visit? Details on how to get there and what to expect on site can include bike parking, number of steps, toilets and changing facilities, capacity and sitting arrangements.
These resources can help you plan and communicate an accessible event:
Sunny’s blog post on accessible events
Relaxed Performance Guidelines (Bodies in Translation)
Venue Access Information Guide (Attitude is Everything)
Family Arts Standards
Age-Friendly Standards
There are many ways to host a listening party and get creative with providing an engaging, relaxed experience leading to connection and discussion. We’ve listed below some core features that will help you think through the details - the rest is entirely up to you and the format you have chosen or invented.
First impressions matter! People may be new to the Listening Party format, so greeting them on arrival and being able to answer their questions will help make people feel welcome and relaxed.
If you’re providing refreshments, make sure that they are in line with the values of the event (e.g. zero-waste catering, local produce) and that ingredients are clearly labelled for people with allergies.
Set the scene for the listening experience by offering context for the event and for the episode(s) you’ve selected. Prepare in advance, checking how guests want to be introduced, including how to pronounce their name. If you are doing a Land Acknowledgement, spend some time getting deeper into your own relationship to the area, local Indigenous people and histories to make it relevant to the gathering and climate action.
Before your event, do a technical test run of all the episodes you want to play:
Post-episode, there are many ways to lead your participants into a conversation. If you’ve invited expert guests, they may have a preferred dialogue framework they can adapt. Tips for moderating an engaging discussion include inviting people to check in with their own feelings and thoughts, by taking a moment to reflect and share; placing the experience back into its wider context; and designing a discussion arc from the individual to the systemic and towards a call to action.
To help your planning with this, we have a comprehensive Discussion Guide for each episode.
Plan out one or more concrete actions that you’re hoping the Listening Party participants will take. This could be donating money to a local climate campaign or getting involved with a local climate group. Make sure you have reached out to these groups beforehand to get their interest and permission to be featured.
For more action ideas, check out the Take Action section on our website.
Check out our Take Action resources
Make sure to keep observing and capturing what is happening throughout your gathering, paying special attention to what is shifting. Meeting new people, learning about other ways of thinking, finding joy and strength in community, taking a public pledge: these small, sometimes subtle changes build trust and strength in community, and being able to capture and share them will add a lot of value to your event. If taking photos and videos, make sure to be clear about consent and usage (resource: Taking Photos at Community Events). You can also devise a creative system to jot down interesting remarks, offers to contribute and other written and verbal feedback.
Reach back to all participants and guests soon after the event to share a few quotes and images and celebrate achievements, like a great turn-up, funds raised for a local cause, a climate action pledge… Even though this comes right at the end, preparing this in advance will make your message stronger - and your life easier! You can also take this opportunity to invite further comments and feedback.
Once the dust has settled, it’s time to process how everything went compared to your initial expectations and objectives. How did people engage with the topics and with each other? How strongly did you feel connected, on the day and afterwards? What was the most significant change you observed as a result of having hosted your Listening Party?
Please tag us in any of your social media posts: sharing any great quotes, photos (with consent from those in the photo) etc. Tag Sunny Drake Productions on Facebook, sunny_drake on instagram and twitter.
We’d also love to hear your Listening Party insights so we can better support other organisers and continue to learn about what turns people from curiosity to action.
Fill out our brief feedback form
We are about to start work on our next climate related work, so stay tuned to the Sunny Drake Productions newsletter and keep in touch.
Thanks for working together to turn this climate ship around!
For questions or more info, contact
Fanny Martin, Lead Producer fanny@artoffestivals.com
You can access discussion guides for each of the episodes, which give an overview of the themes, discussion questions, resources and take action ideas.
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You’ll also get tips for hosting your very own listening party, insights from behind the scenes, a discussion guide and ideas to support climate equity in your community. Think of it as a free subscription to a zine that will make your life – and next family dinner – more fun. Go on, subscribe now.
