What happens after a major arts festival ends? How do you rebuild creative momentum, support emerging artists, and keep fringe theatre alive in central London?
I chatted with Oli Savage (artistic director) and Ellie Shaw (theatre manager) from The Glitch, a Zone 1 performance venue and café bar near Waterloo, about life after Vault Festival, their innovative multi-slot programming model, affordable hire structure, scratch nights, Edinburgh Fringe previews, and their commitment to being one of the friendliest and most accessible fringe theatre spaces in London.
From artist development awards to late-night comedy, inclusive programming and festival-style energy year-round, this is a conversation about how a small venue is building a new future for independent theatre in the capital.
Louise: Let’s start with the big picture. There’s obviously a history here with the Festival, the old Vaults model, and now The Glitch. Can you tell us a bit about that evolution?
Oli: Of course. I joined the organisation in 2024, just after everything around the Festival had collapsed. I was brought in to help reconfigure things and think about what the future could look like.
At that point, the venue downstairs looked very different. It was about a third of the size it is now: much smaller, very intimate, mostly used for comedy.
It was a really useful space, but when it was originally created by the Festival team, it was primarily a base of operations. The café was meant to help support that model, but when the Festival ended, we had to rethink everything.
The big question for us was: how do we deliver the same quality and quantity of opportunities that the Festival offered, but in a sustainable, year-round way?
Instead of popping up for six weeks in the spring, how do we become a permanent, vibrant venue?
So, we refurbished and expanded the space, making it more flexible. Ellie joined about nine months after I did, and since then, we’ve been shaping what feels like a really exciting programming model.
We’re trying to build a future that honours what the Festival was, but isn’t trapped by it.
Louise: So, what makes the programming model different?
Oli: We run three programming slots a night during the week, and up to five on weekends. That’s unusual for a venue of our size.
For us, it’s about maximising opportunity. If we have the space, why wouldn’t we use it? It means we can support headline runs, short runs, one-off shows, late-night comedy: lots of different formats.
We’re trying to build a future that honours what the Festival was, but isn’t trapped by it. Maybe festivals will return in some form, and we’d love that, but right now we’re focused on building something sustainable, agile and artist-centred.
Louise: Just to clarify — do you own the Vaults? What’s the current structure of Vault Creative Arts?
Oli: No. There are essentially three separate entities. The building [The Vaults] itself is owned and run separately. The Festival brand is owned by the founders. And we operate as our own organisation within that ecosystem. We don’t own the Festival brand.
Louise: You do in-house productions as well?
Oli: Yes. Originally it was once a year, but I’ve always been keen to produce more. Producing allows us to say: this is the kind of work we want to see here. It’s also important financially. For example, a successful Christmas show really helps sustain us.
Last year’s Christmas run of The Lost Library of Leake Street was a success, which put us in a good position going forward.
We also introduced the Playwriting Award. This is an open-access opportunity where we select an early-career writer, pay them a fee, and produce their work fully in-house. That’s part of our artist development strand.
We’re particularly interested in shows with music at the moment, but broadly we want to create as many different types of opportunities as we can.
We should be experimenting with structures and formats, not just artists experimenting with work.
Louise: What about Scratch nights and more experimental work?
Ellie: I’m a huge advocate for Scratch nights. They’re so important. We run them monthly at the moment, and we’ve had brilliant seasons. Recently, we worked with around 30 different artists across a few weeks.
Oli: We’re also experimenting with longer-term scratch development. Not just putting work on stage once, but building relationships between writers, actors and directors. Giving them space to develop properly.
Scratch should be about trying things. And that applies to venues, too. We should be experimenting with structures and formats, not just artists experimenting with work.
Louise: You hosted the Lambeth Fringe last year. Is working with other festivals part of the plan?
Oli: Definitely. We can’t deliver our own Festival on the old scale right now, but we can build festival energy into the venue.
People love festivals because of the atmosphere of everyone in one place, networking, and sharing ideas. We want to recreate that feeling in ways that are manageable for us.
Ellie: We’re also planning our own pre-Edinburgh Fringe preview season this summer, essentially a month of back-to-back preview shows.
It’s for artists testing work before Edinburgh, and also for audiences who can’t get to Edinburgh but want to see that kind of exciting, up-and-coming work in one place.
And it won’t just be comedy. We want theatre, music, and experimental work too.
I genuinely believe we’re one of the cheapest Zone 1 venues for artists.
Louise: How does the financial structure work for artists?
Oli: Affordability is a key word for us.
For headline shows (typically seven performances), there’s a £500 deposit and then a 70/30 box office split in the artist’s favour.
For one-off slots, it’s a flat hire fee (currently £75), and artists keep their ticket income.
I genuinely believe we’re one of the cheapest Zone 1 venues for artists. When I joined, that was non-negotiable. We want access to be real and affordable for everyone.
We also run a café bar from morning to late evening. Artists get discounts because we want them to spend time here, build community, and for the bar to help sustain the venue.
Louise: What is your USP and vibe at The Glitch?
Ellie: When I interviewed for the job, there was a sign on the wall that said: “But is it fun?”
That’s genuinely a guiding principle. It should be fun. We’re ambitious, but we’re also playful.
Oli: Our three big guiding ideas are:
- Quality and quantity of opportunity
- Friendliness
- Fun
We want to be the friendliest venue in London. That means being flexible. If an artist asks for 10 minutes of extra access, why not? If it doesn’t hurt us, let’s just say yes.
You don’t know what you don’t know.
Louise: You seem particularly focused on supporting early-career artists?
Oli: Very much so. Many artists who come to us are presenting their first-ever show.
We feel a responsibility – not arrogantly, but genuinely – to provide pastoral care. Helping with everything from writing a proper synopsis to understanding how to work with front-of-house staff. You don’t know what you don’t know.
Ellie: I took a show to Edinburgh recently, and even with training and experience, there were still things I was figuring out. Fringe is hard. Solo work is hard.
Community is everything. If you go see other people’s shows, they’ll come to see yours. That’s how networks form. We want this venue to physically create that kind of community.
Louise: One thing people always said about the old Festival was how safe and welcoming it felt in terms of diversity and representation.
Oli: That’s very important to us. Across open application processes, we ensure that at least 50% of shortlisted artists come from underrepresented backgrounds.
It’s not a tick-box exercise — it’s embedded in how we operate.
Ellie: It perpetuates itself. If people feel welcome, they tell others. That matters hugely.
We ensure that at least 50% of shortlisted artists come from underrepresented backgrounds.
Louise: Do you work closely with other local theatres and venues?
Oli: Not as much as we should, honestly. It’s something we want to develop.
But we don’t see other theatres as competitors. Our competitors are bars and other leisure options. If someone’s deciding what to do on a Tuesday night, that’s the competition, not another fringe venue.
We’re also developing pipelines with other organisations so artists can move onward from here.
Louise: If someone wants to pitch work to you, how do they do it?
Oli: We run open application processes for our Spring and Autumn headline seasons. For shorter runs or one-off slots, artists can apply via the website or email us.
Ellie: We operate a very strong “no closed doors” policy. If someone applies for a short run, the vast majority of the time, we’ll say yes, unless there are exceptional circumstances. We don’t want to stand in the way of someone trying an idea.
We programme headline shows 9–12 months in advance. But short runs? You could be on stage next week.
If you’ve got something weird, something you’re not sure will work – try it!
Louise: So, looking ahead, what’s next for The Glitch?
Oli: Potentially a rebrand. Further refurbishment. More festivals in the building. Stronger pipelines. Lots of exciting conversations are happening.
We’re still relatively young in this version of the venue, having been in this current model for just over a year. I’m really excited about what the next 6, 12, 18 months look like.
Ellie: I love my job. I enjoy talking about the work here.
If you’ve got something weird, something you’re not sure will work – try it! We like basements. We like bold ideas. That’s what this space is for.