Lucy Plaskett - Head of Fundraising

Lucy Plaskett - Head of Fundraising

Lucy is the Head of Fundraising at BAFTA, responsible for overseeing the capital campaign for the redevelopment of 195 Piccadilly. Lucy gives an insight into how the reopening of 195 Piccadilly will enable BAFTA to expand it's learning and talent support programme.

How are you involved in the BAFTA 195 Piccadilly redevelopment project? And at what stage are you at?

I joined BAFTA at the beginning of 2019 to work with the team on the campaign to raise money to redevelop 195 Piccadilly. We have currently raised 86% of our fundraising target of £34m and we are working very hard to raise the remaining funds by the end of 2021. The last 18 months have been a really challenging time for fundraising, but we are really grateful to have had the ongoing generous support of our industries, individual philanthropists and trusts and foundations who really believe in the project and what it will enable BAFTA to achieve.

How will the new space help expand/support BAFTA's year-round work as a charity?

This is the really exciting part for me – the redevelopment will double the capacity of the building, enabling us to create a whole new floor entirely devoted to our learning and new talent development programmes. We will have a dedicated learning space for the first time ever – the Creative and Future Galleries – with state-of-the-art technology, including green screen and editing capabilities. We will also be able to hire out parts of the building, so it will work hard for us in terms of generating revenue to expand our work – as an arts charity BAFTA has a global reach and impact but we don’t get any core funding, so revenue from 195 Piccadilly is crucial to enable us to grow and develop our programmes.

What element of the new building you are most excited about?

It’s all going to be extraordinary but I think a real highlight for me is the Princess Anne Theatre. It’s the heart of 195 and we use it daily – the whole cinema has been stripped back and completely redesigned, and the Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos technology will make it one of the very best screening rooms in London. We’ve carefully preserved our film projectors, so if we want to show 35mm or 70mm film we can move the vision projectors to one side and move the film projectors in. It’s going to be a great resource.

What do the next five months look like for you and the team?

Super busy – and really exciting as we look forward to the soft launch in November. We are working hard to meet our target by the end of the year and talking to as many people as possible about BAFTA’s plans for the future. We will relaunch our expanded learning and talent development programmes in 2022, and we are only able to do this because of the increased space, technology and revenues that 195 Piccadilly will provide.

What is your favourite film?

There are so many but a film I love is City of God.

What is your favourite TV show?

I loved Breaking Bad and I can’t wait for season 4 of Ozark and season 3 of Succession.

What is your favourite video game?

I’ve come late to games but there’s so much to explore. I recently put on a VR headset and tried Half Life, which was pretty extraordinary. VR is so exciting – the possible applications are endless!