The Challenge: Aberdeen Arts Centre is facing a financial crisis, putting its future and the opportunities it provides to performers, audiences, and local creatives at risk. To generate urgent support, they needed a campaign that would raise awareness, evoke emotion, and drive meaningful action.

The Solution: Farsight produced a narrative-driven campaign video following a young performer as their spotlight fades, representing the potential loss of a creative future. With the rallying message “Keep the Spotlight Shining on Your Creative Community,” the video aimed to inspire immediate support from the local and wider community.

The Results: Released as the centrepiece of the #SaveAberdeenArtsCentre campaign, the video received high engagement across social media, praise from the arts community, and was picked up by local media. It now supports the ongoing fundraising drive, encouraging viewers to donate at justgiving.com/campaign/saveaberdeenartscentre and learn more at aberdeenartscentre.com.

The aim of the video was to serve as the emotional and strategic centrepiece of the Save Aberdeen Arts Centre campaign. The client’s specific goals included:

• Raise Public Awareness of the financial challenges threatening the future of the arts centre.
• Drive Donations by inspiring immediate action through an emotionally resonant call to support the cause.
• Highlight Community Impact by showing what’s at stake, particularly for young and emerging creatives who rely on the space.
• Establish a Clear Campaign Identity built around the message “Keep the Spotlight Shining on Your Creative Community.”
• Generate Media Attention and social media traction to amplify visibility across Aberdeen and the wider creative sector.

The video was designed to remind audiences what would be lost without this space and why saving it matters.

Our approach began with a simple yet powerful concept: a spotlight fading on a young performer. This became the central visual metaphor for the campaign, symbolising the silence and stillness that could fall over Aberdeen’s creative community if the centre were lost.

We collaborated closely with the Aberdeen Arts Centre team to understand their story, tone, and the urgency of the situation. From there, we developed a storyboard that followed a single performer on stage, framed in isolation as the light switches off. The scripting was minimal by design, allowing the visuals and atmosphere to carry the emotional weight, with the campaign tagline “Keep the Spotlight Shining on Your Creative Community” serving as the final, resonant call to action.

Every creative choice from lighting and shot composition to pacing and sound was made to evoke empathy, urgency, and connection. The goal was to create a piece that could be understood and felt instantly, across any age group or background, making the message impossible to ignore.

Filming took place inside Aberdeen Arts Centre itself, making the location not just a backdrop, but a character in the story. The use of the actual stage reinforced the authenticity of the message and allowed us to visually highlight what’s truly at risk.

The shoot was completed in a single day to minimise disruption and preserve the raw, intimate atmosphere. Lighting played a central role in the storytelling. We utilised a controlled spotlight rig to create a dramatic contrast between light and darkness, reinforcing the campaign’s core message visually.

The campaign video quickly became the emotional anchor of the Save Aberdeen Arts Centre initiative. By centring the story on a single young performer and the fading spotlight, the video struck a chord with audiences across Aberdeen and beyond, humanising the wider funding crisis and making the threat feel personal, immediate, and real.

The video was shared widely across social media, embedded on the Aberdeen Arts Centre website, and featured as part of press and media outreach. It helped drive traffic to the JustGiving page, contributing to a significant uplift in donations during the campaign’s initial launch window.

Most importantly, the campaign successfully reframed the challenge from a funding appeal to a shared responsibility, showing what would be lost if the centre’s doors closed. The film helped rally the community, energise public conversation, and position the arts centre as an essential part of Aberdeen’s cultural and social fabric.