After our Arts Council funded Project to replace our dancefloor in early 2025, we were introduced to Robyn’s Rocket as they were embarking on their own Arts Council Project. The synergies were immediately obvious, as it gave us to opportunity to add another community that we could make our space inclusive for. 

Inviting Robyn’s Rocket’s community of people with Learning Disabilities and Autism into our space was an opportunity for us to learn from the Robyn’s Rocket team, enabling us to build on our commitment to improving access to our space. The team at Robyn’s Rocket were incredibly supportive to us, conducting multiple sessions with our teams to help us understand what to expect from their community and how best to help people from their community when they visited us. This, along with possibly the best start of event brief we have ever seen, gave our team the confidence to engage with people with Learning Disabilities and Autism and deliver a hugely successful event

We view the collaboration with Robyn’s Rocket as more than a transactional hire of a venue as we have been able to adopt permanent changes to our operation, such as including symbols being posted on the walls of our welfare centre so that people can point to them if verbal communication isn't possible. Robyn’s Rocket has also helped us to share our accessibility page and overall accessibility policies at the club, with these elements being far more valuable to us than any hire fee could ever be

We hope that this is the start of a long standing relationship where fabric and Robyn’s Rocket can collaborate on events and other projects for a long time to come

Luke Laws - operations manager.

“Club Soda has worked closely with Robyn’s Rocket over a number of years, and their impact on the learning-disabled and autistic artists we support has been both practical and profound. Robyn creates spaces where artists are treated with genuine respect, encouraged to take creative risks and supported to be seen and heard on their own terms. Our artists have benefited directly from performance opportunities, collaboration and the confidence that comes from being welcomed into an environment where access is considered from the outset, rather than added later.

Robyn’s Rocket has also influenced our own practice at Club Soda. We have taken real inspiration from Robyn’s approach to inclusion, communication and artist-centred support, and from the way accessibility is embedded across every aspect of the work. Their contribution reaches beyond individual artists - they are helping to model a more inclusive music industry and raising expectations of what good access and meaningful representation should look like.”

Oliver Tipper
Director, Club Soda

Robyn joined our artist development programme in April 2017.
We supported her to begin her first residency locally in Deptford at Vinyl
and have continued to support her by working alongside her, offering development support, personnel and safeguarding support, connecting her with freelancers and artists, helping with livestreaming and offering advice and attending meetings with her. The relationship has been one of inter-dependence and has been mutually helpful and successful.  Robyn has programmed many Heart n Soul artists and offered opportunities for new collaborations, performance and recording opportunities.

Robyn’s work has impacted our work by being a living and evolving example of how to work with an artist who is making their own way but wants to keep connected to the Heart n Soul family of artists, freelancers and support.  It is an exciting and vital journey to be on together.

Robyn’s Rocket has offered many opportunities to our artists. Visual artists like Samir, Aysen and Jade have all benefited from working alongside Rucksack Cinema at all the Robyn’s’ Rockets at Café Oto and FABRIC.

Established artists like the late Lizzie Emeh (alongside Grace Savage and JB Rose), Electric Fire, DMS, Dean Rodney and the Cowboys and Sam Castell-Ward have all performed on the Rocket stages as have new and experimental combinations of artists like Mick Grierson and Isaac Palm, Wayne Taylor and Tilley and Del and Dean Rodney, Wayne, Ned Smith, Mark Williams and Sascha.

This had led to the opportunities for new collaborations that have taken place for artists like Michaela Overton, Cheryl Lyte, Will King, Isaac Palm and others on the two ‘Robyn Rocket and People You May Have Heard Of ‘album recordings which have created opportunities for more new combinations of disabled and non-disabled experimental players to create together.

Robyn’s Rocket has impacted on the Heart n Soul community by encouraging and welcoming them to spaces like Café Oto and FABRIC that were previously not on their radar, helping us build new relationships (like the DJ’s visit to FABRIC) and informing the way we share social stories, social media and wider access opportunities. Artists like Sam Castell-Ward have been directly influenced by Robyn’s example of starting small, curating and building your own scene, and is currently programming his third Something Different night in Deptford.

We are committed to continuing to work and support Robyn through offering in kind safe-guarding, guidance, office space and co-programming opportunities.

Robyn’s Rocket is a trail blazing initiative that is impacting the cultural sector, achieving change through fearlessly reaching out and connecting to influencers and influential people and by creating original, individual and engaging events that work for everyone.

Cafe OTO’s relationship with Robyn Steward began in 2017, with Robyn first performing at the venue with Kathy Hulme as The Hairdressers, supporting Bitchin Bajas in May 2018. The first dedicated Robyn’s Rocket event followed at Cafe OTO in September 2018. Since then, Robyn’s Rocket has developed from a small experimental night into one of the most distinctive and valuable recurring projects we have had a long-term relationship with at the venue.

What makes Robyn’s Rocket particularly important is that access and artistic ambition are inseparable. Robyn brings together experimental and improvising musicians with artists with learning disabilities and autistic artists on equal terms, creating line-ups, collaborations and encounters that would be unlikely to happen elsewhere. In doing so, the project has built meaningful connections between Cafe OTO’s experimental music community, the Heart n Soul community and a much wider group of artists and audiences.

Robyn’s approach to access is practical, imaginative and responsive. Social stories, communication badges, visual and talking timetables, ear defenders, clear visual systems, live streaming, active hosting and ongoing audience feedback are built into the events rather than treated as additions to them. This has had value beyond Robyn’s own programme. Working with Robyn has encouraged us at OTO to think more carefully about how our venue, programme and working practices can become more welcoming to artists and audiences who have historically been excluded from experimental music spaces.

There is also clear evidence of sustained audience development. Our records show audiences of 33, 38 and 32 for the three Robyn’s Rocket events at OTO in 2019. In later years the project has repeatedly brought audiences of more than 100 to OTO, including 105 in April 2023, 109 in November 2023, 135 in April 2024 and 108 in September 2024. That growth has happened while retaining the project’s experimental character and its commitment to access, and Robyn has gone on to extend the project through EFG London Jazz Festival, larger off-site events and new partnerships.

Over the years we have seen Robyn develop into an increasingly experienced and thoughtful producer and curator. She listens carefully to artists and audiences, acts on feedback, develops partnerships over the long term and thinks seriously about how the project can become more sustainable without losing sight of the communities it exists to serve. The move to a CIC feels like a natural next stage for a project that has already demonstrated artistic quality, public value, sustained audience development and a substantial track record.

Cafe OTO is very happy to continue as a project partner. We believe Robyn’s Rocket makes a meaningful contribution not only to learning disabled and autistic arts practice, but to experimental music culture more broadly, and we strongly support its continued development.

In February 2026, we were lucky enough to host Robyn’s Rocket as part of our Late Night Jazz  series in the Elgar Room at Royal Albert Hall. From start to finish, working with Robyn and the team was fantastic. They are professional, practical, creative, and possess an incredible attention to detail.

Robyn’s Inclusive Conscious approach was detailed, considerate and provided impactful learnings for us as a venue across many departments. Her entire team displayed a deep sense of care for the project, the artists and the audience, and it was such a joy to work with such a talented and ambitious group of people.

The entire show was full of heart and joy, and is still one of my favourite shows in our Late Night Jazz series to date. We are keen to support this project and have Robyn’s Rocket return for more shows in future. I would implore any funding body to support Robyn’s work so that she may continue to create inclusive and accessible gigs, and to share Robyn’s Rocket with as many people as possible.