A bowl of art for dinner

A new approach to raising money for creative ventures will be on show during an evening of soup and art.

‘Sunday Soup at the Red Rat’, a new grassroots approach to funding artistic projects, will launch on February 5 at The Red Rattler Theatre in Marrickville.

The event is both a banquet and forum that enables artists to discuss their potential projects and gain independent funding.

“The basic recipe is that people come together, pay a fee, share a meal, and listen to a bunch of ideas and things people are working on or making,” the Theatre said in a statement.

“Everyone who purchases the meal gets one vote and all the income from that meal is given as a grant to support the creative project with the most votes.”

The event co-coordinator, Penelope Benton, said many types of ventures would be accepted. “It’s largely dependent on what people are willing to bring to the forum. It really will change with every different Sunday soup,” she said.

“We could be supporting films, we could be supporting magazines, it could be websites, it could be a book.”

Co-organiser of the music and arts series ‘New Moon Blues’, Asher Richardson, supports the idea.

“Trying to get funding can be such a daunting and difficult experience for people wanting to kick-start a project. Even worse is when you’re asked to compromise your ideas to fit the values of the sponsors,” he said.

“New Moon Blues would definitely look to participate in the project, even if it’s just for a good meal and meeting some new friends.”

“I think perhaps a movie screening or performance could liven up the evening,” Mr Richardson said.

‘Sunday Soup’, an initiative believed to originate in the United States, helps fund projects otherwise overlooked by mainstream sources. Meals will cost between $7 and $10.

Ms Benton has some loose predictions for how much money they will raise on the night.

“Looking at the events around other countries, sometimes they raise a couple of hundred and sometimes they raise a couple of thousand.”

She said if they achieve full capacity, which is 300 people, they will raise $3,000. She expects to see at least 100 people.

Plans for the next event, ‘Second Soup at The Red Rat’, are not yet confirmed. “We haven’t set a date for the next one, because we wanted to see how this one went,” she said.