Welcome to the pilot of the Association of British Theatre Technicians (ABTT) Copper Award.
This award offers a base-line, quality control for the increasing number of “in house” training courses that venues across the UK are offering in a bid to help drive recruitment and retention to jobs backstage.
The award is co-awarded by the ABTT and partner venues. Award certificates are co-signed by the ABTT, who provide the curricula and test framework, and the partner venue, who deliver the training and ensure the fairness of the test conditions.
The Copper Award celebrates the achievements of participants who have learned the core knowledge and skills needed to work in a technical backstage role. It enables the holder to show future employees or training providers that they have invested time and effort learning the rudimentary basics required to work backstage.
The Copper award shows the candidate is literate to a basic level and would be safe to be on stage during a fit up or get out but requires further training and investment to build knowledge and skills. A Copper Award holder would benefit from more ‘onsite’ training and development before progressing up to the ABTT Bronze Award.