Are you good in a crisis?
The Culture Crisis Lab runs tabletop crisis exercises for charities, community groups and cultural organisations. Boards, staff and volunteers work through a realistic emergency together, in a safe setting, and leave knowing what to strengthen next. It also works for the councils, funders and umbrella bodies that support them, as a shared exercise across a network or a place.
The first Lab
Governance Now 2026, Middlesbrough
The first Culture Crisis Lab runs on Monday 2 November 2026, from 2pm to 4pm, the day before Governance Now 2026: Purpose & Place, presented by Clore Leadership and the Cultural Governance Alliance. It is fully booked.
If you missed out, there will be more. Leave your details to hear first about half-day Labs in 2027.
Contact us
Leave your details to hear when booking opens for half-day Labs, and when the book is published.
Latest news
News and updates from the Lab will appear here.
How a Lab works
A Lab is a rehearsal for the day something goes wrong. It borrows the tabletop exercises used by emergency planners and adapts them for charities, community groups and cultural organisations, following the UK Government Resilience Framework.
1. The scenario
Each table plays one real organisation. The scenario stays secret until the session starts, just as a real crisis gives no warning.
2. The injects
New information arrives on cards at set times. Each card changes the situation, and the table decides what to do next without every fact.
3. The decision log
One person records each decision, who made it and why: the record a board or insurer would ask to see afterwards.
4. The hot wash
A debrief straight afterwards draws out what worked, what surprised people and what they wished they had. Each organisation leaves with points to act on.
Tables of six share the jobs a real crisis needs: chair, logger, communications, people, operations and timekeeper. The ground rules are simple: no wrong answers, the Chatham House rule, and anyone can step out whenever they need to.
Who the Lab is for
The people who carry responsibility when things go wrong, in organisations of every size: charities and community groups, museums, galleries, theatres, libraries, heritage sites, and the halls and venues that host them.
Trustees and board members
Chief executives and directors
Operations, venue and front-of-house managers
Collections, digital and risk leads
Umbrella bodies and sector networks
Councils and cultural services
Funders, trusts and foundations
Half-day Labs from 2027
Open Labs bring together people from different organisations, so participants learn from each other as well as from the exercise. Dates and venues for 2027 will be announced here first.
- Half a day, in person
- Tables of six, each playing one real organisation
- The scenario stays secret until the day
Want a Lab for your own organisation, network or area? See commissioned Labs.
Bring the Lab to your organisation
An in-house Lab is built around one organisation: its buildings, collections, programme and people. The scenario is written in advance with a small planning group, so the exercise tests the risks that matter most, and the debrief produces a plan the board can adopt.
Commission a Lab for a network or a place
Some risks are too big for one organisation to plan for alone. A commissioned Lab brings together the organisations a body supports, so they can test how neighbours, networks and services would respond together and agree the mutual aid that none of them could arrange on its own.
Umbrella bodies and networks
A Lab for members, run as part of a conference, training programme or network meeting. The first Lab is part of Governance Now 2026, the Cultural Governance Alliance conference.
Councils
For council-run venues and cultural services, and for the cultural organisations in a place, with local emergency planners taking part alongside them.
Funders
A practical way to build resilience across a portfolio, with a clear record of the actions each funded organisation takes away.
Price on application: it depends on the location, the number of organisations taking part and how much of the scenario is tailored.
Book cover image
The book · Published December 2026
Are You Good in a Crisis?
Building a Culture of Resilience in Charities and Community Groups, by Keith Arrowsmith
The companion to the Lab: a practical guide for trustees, staff and volunteers to preparing for a crisis, coping with it and recovering afterwards. It includes ready-to-use tools, among them an incident action card, a decision log and a tabletop exercise kit.
Published by ProArtsPlus in December 2026 in hardback and as an ebook, with the paperback following in January 2027.
Guidance and resources
Practical guidance, editable versions of the book’s tools and an up-to-date table of the legislation and guidance it covers will be published when the book comes out.
Photo of Keith
About Keith Arrowsmith
Keith Arrowsmith is a solicitor, managing director of ProArtsPlus and lead governance associate at Clore Leadership. ProArtsPlus advises charities, cultural organisations and creative businesses on governance, contracts and disputes, and Keith has more than 30 years’ experience as a solicitor.
His workshops are practical, lively and grounded in real situations, with room for a little humour along the way.
Read Keith’s article for Arts Professional: Are you good in a crisis? The case for rehearsing the worst.