Five Ways to Successfully Start a Performing Arts Academy

By Emma Taylor, Head of Business Management at the Pauline Quirke Academy of Performing Arts (PQA)

The UK’s performing arts sector has grown significantly in recent years and makes for a great career for anyone looking to start their own business. 

A report by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport shows that music, performing and visual arts is 17.9% up on its pre-pandemic level, with its economic value growing from £921 million in February 2020 to more than £100 billion in June 2023. 

An important part of the UK economy, the sector employs more than 2 million people and creates a raft of societal benefits too, including supporting child development, encouraging health-promoting behaviours and improving mental health.

If you’re sold on the idea of setting up your own performing arts academy but don’t quite know where to begin, here are five ways you can get started. 

1. Create strong partnerships

Successful businesses have one thing in common – successful partnerships. For a performing arts business, it can be very helpful to have strong partnerships with local schools and young people’s community groups, parents and grandparents who live in the area, venues who can support your activities and classes each week, as well as members of local social media groups. 

By having strong partnerships with individuals or organisations whose goals and values align with yours, you will be able to build a performing arts academy that the local community trusts and wants to support. 

2. You don’t have to give up the day job 

The joy of running your own performing arts academy is that you can still continue with a current day job, if you want or need. Many of the Principals who run a PQA academy have a full-time job, such as a police officer, professional actor and teacher. 

Performing arts academies are typically only open for a few days in the latter part of the week and over the weekend. This is because they are for children and young people who are at school or college during the week – so Friday evenings and weekend mornings are the best times to host classes. 

Principals find this setup gives them a better work life balance and the ability to follow their passion for teaching young people performing arts, whilst also being able to enjoy another career. Being your own boss means you can spend as much of your time as you like running your academy. 

At PQA, for example, someone who is just starting out is more likely to use all of our business planning and development expertise, including marketing, lesson plans, and finance tools. Whilst others are very happy and confident to set up and run their business with very little assistance from our central HQ.

3. Understand your market 

Any entrepreneur and business owner needs to understand the market in which they operate. Failing to do so means your business is unlikely to be as successful as you’d like and it may take longer to hit your goals.

There are hundreds of performing arts academies across the country. Most major towns and cities have at least one, so, as a starting point, it is important to understand who your local competitors are. Find out what their offering is and how you can provide something different. At PQA, we differ ourselves by teaching young people about film and TV production and comedy, for example. 

Take time to research the demographics of the location, whether there are suitable premises to host classes, whether there are teachers and industry professionals in the area you can recruit, and whether there is an appetite for the services you offer. 

4. Have fun and be creative

Many jobs can be boring and don’t live up to the hype. But being the boss of your own performing arts academy means you can have as much fun as you like and be as creative as you choose. You get to drive the direction of the academy – you might wish to focus on Shakespeare or TV dramas one term and comedy and dancing the next, it’s completely up to you to lead the creative direction. 

5. Appoint the right team to support your vision 

Recruitment can be the toughest part of any job, but putting time and energy into recruiting the right people for your business will pay off in the long run. Choose people who not only have the best skills and experience, but who are also passionate about the role, your business and your vision for the future. Having a passionate and ambitious team will help your business to retain clients and grow.