Introduction.- Precarity in Freelance Work and Self-Employment.- Precarity and Work in The UK Cultural and Creative Sector.- Researching Precarious Work Experiences.- COVID-19 and Its Impact.- The Challenges of Financial and Operational Precarity.- Precarity, Identity and the Meaning of Cultural and Creative Work.- Live Entertainers and Extended Forms of Precarity.- Beyond Precarity?  Towards a Fairer Future for Live Performers.

This open access book focuses on the distinctive experiences of freelance and self-employed live performers in the UK’s live entertainment industries It provides an in-depth account of their working lives during COVID-19, showing how their experiences of the pandemic provide insight into the different types of precarity shaping what it means to be a live performer. A growing body of academic research has focused on the meaning, experience, and nature of precarity for those working in the cultural and creative sector, highlighting the problem of socio-economic precarity. This book demonstrates how a constant struggle for recognition also shapes the contours and lived experiences of live performance work. It emphasizes how, combined with affective and socio-economic forms of precarity, this recognitive precarity creates a distinctive and challenging set of working conditions. Drawing on original data generated through a national survey of self-employed and freelance performers across the live entertainment industries, combined with insights derived from a series of in-depth semi-structured interviews, this book presents an empirically rich insight into the struggles and opportunities presented by the multiple forms of precarity that the pandemic brought to the fore. It gives voice to a precarious workforce that remains integral to one of the UK’s most economically buoyant sectors but whose experiences are often marginalized in academic research, and in policy and practice. It will, therefore, offer a unique insight for both students and scholars of work and employment, and for those working in the cultural and creative sector, into the distinctive nature of work as a freelance or self-employed live performer.   Philp Hancock is a Professor of Work and Organization Studies at Essex Business School, University of Essex, UK.   Melissa Tyler is a Professor of Work and Organization Studies at Essex Business School, University of Essex, UK.

“This is a book that emanates respect for its subject matter – freelance performers – and for how many managed to navigate the pandemic despite losing all their work almost overnight. Although an academic text, this book offers rich emotional content and an opportunity to finally start coming to terms with the devastating impact of Covid on freelancers in the performing arts. It closes with recommendations for how performers might be spared some of these shocks in future: one can only hope decision makers take note.” (Mimi Doulton, freelance singer and campaigner, writing for Arts Professional)

This book is open access, which means that you have free and unlimited access Offers an in-depth focus on the different kinds of precarity experienced by cultural and creative workers Uses survey and interview data to explore the lived experiences of the cultural and creative workforce Provides an in-depth account of live performers’ experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond

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