{"id":1040,"date":"2022-05-04T10:01:20","date_gmt":"2022-05-04T10:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.spotlight.com\/?p=1040"},"modified":"2026-04-21T15:31:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T15:31:35","slug":"spotlight-expands-its-joining-criteria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spotlight.com\/news-and-advice\/spotlight\/spotlight-expands-its-joining-criteria\/","title":{"rendered":"Spotlight expands its joining criteria"},"content":{"rendered":"

Opening Doors: Understanding Spotlight\u2019s New, Inclusive Membership Criteria<\/h2>\n

We\u2019re excited to announce our new criteria for joining Spotlight as a performer. We\u2019ve spent a great deal of time developing our criteria, taking on performer, agent and casting director feedback and carrying out discussions with numerous industry groups.<\/p>\n

Listen to the audio version of this article here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve decided to broaden our criteria to help improve the industry\u2019s ongoing issues relating to diversity, equality, and inclusion and to ensure that Spotlight remains the true home of casting in an ever-growing and diversifying market, whilst maintaining the professional standards expected of us.<\/p>\n

In the past number of years, we have been working to transition our offering from a solely acting-focused platform to a wider talent base, offering our casting members performers in all aspects of the industry, whether that be motion capture, dance or puppetry. We believe our new criteria services are growing needs within the performance market, and additionally open up membership for applicants who previously struggled to get into the industry. Additionally, performers with UK bank accounts will be able to join on a monthly Direct Debit basis from the start, rather than pay for a year of Spotlight membership up front. We are also working on making this monthly Direct Debit payment option available to both our young performers and non-UK members in the coming months.<\/p>\n

Spotlight is also offering up to 400 annual bursaries<\/a>\u00a0covering one free year of membership to help those performers struggling most with the financial barriers of entry to the industry.<\/p>\n

We hope these changes improve on and identify issues in our previous criteria and open our membership up to the wonderful talent ready to join our industry.<\/p>\n

These new changes mean that to qualify as a Spotlight member, a new performer will need to have one of the following:<\/p>\n