Volunteer
Volunteer
At the Octagon Theatre, we work hard to bring stories to life on our stages, to build confidence and skills with our participation programme and ensure all of our audiences have the best experience possible.
In order to do this we rely on the help and support of our volunteers.
There are several ways you could be involved in volunteering at the Octagon, to register your interest in volunteering please complete the below form.
Please note that the minimum age to volunteer at the Octagon is 16 (and to have reached school leaving age).
Ways you can volunteer
Customer Experience
Our Customer Experience Volunteers play a vital role in creating a welcoming and safe environment for everyone attending our performances.
During each show, our volunteers help greet visitors as they arrive, scan tickets, and assist customers in finding their way around the venue and to their seats.
They are also on hand throughout the event to answer questions and provide support, ensuring customers have an enjoyable and comfortable experience.
In the unlikely event of an emergency, volunteers help guide customers safely during an evacuation.
The majority of our performances take place in the evening, so a typical volunteer shift runs from around 6:45pm to 10:00pm approximately.
We do also have some daytime performances where a shift might be 1.15pm – 5pm approximately
Most of our volunteers tend to support us for one shift per week, but we do have flexibility around this.
We’re looking for people who are friendly, approachable, and enjoy interacting with the public!
We recruit Customer Experience Volunteers periodically across the year via Recruitment Days.
Your Registration of Interest Form will provide us with all the information we need to invite you to the next event we hold, approximately one month before it is due to take place.
Creative Engagement
Our volunteers are a core part of our Creative Engagement team. We deliver a wide range of theatre and arts activities throughout the year. You can see everything we have coming up here on the website.
We're looking for volunteers who are friendly and approachable with experience working in community a/o creative settings or are keen to learn more about this work. What you do within sessions will vary depending on the group that you are with and the facilitator that you are supporting, but examples of what we may expect you to do include:
- Communicating with our participants and making them feel at ease
- Supporting the facilitator during sessions e.g. encouraging positive behaviour and participation in activities
- Supporting individuals and groups under the direction of the group facilitator
- Being approachable, proactive and provide fresh viewpoints within the group
- Assisting participants in getting around the building (e.g. loo breaks)
- Supporting staff with other tasks e.g. registers and signing participants in and out of sessions
Most volunteers will commit to a maximum of one session per week of around 2 hours. The duration of this commitment may range from our standard 10 week term to a full school year (September to July). We often need volunteers for one-off events and workshops along with our projects in school holidays. This will all be mutually agreed with yourself and one of our activity leads.
Note: We review applications when there is a volunteer vacancy to fill within a specific group, not on a case-by-case basis. We will then contact applicants with specific dates and times after applications have been reviewed.