In attempting to reach rural audiences, arts organisations first need to establish what differentiates them from their urban counterparts. Dianne Greig and Charlotte Winter compare and contrast.
The starkest difference between rural and urban audiences stems from the landscape in which they live. To take Scotland as an example, at its urban core the country contains two leading European cities Glasgow (now known at home and abroad as Scotland with Style thanks to a very successful re-branding campaign) and its capital city, Edinburgh. Conversely, it has some of the most remote and sparsely populated communities in the Western world. To put this into context, according to the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) there around 35 people per hectare living within the Glasgow City Council area as opposed to Highland Councils statistic of less than 0.1. Over 50% of the Councils in Scotland cater for an average of two people or fewer per hectare.
Percentages
To put this in perspective, in rural areas the arts need to reach a much higher percentage of the local audience in order to be classified a success. For an event to play to a capacity audience at the Lochside Theatre in Castle Douglas in Dumfries and Galloway, it would have to attract 5% of the local population of 3,700. This is the equivalent to the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall reaching 29,000 people through one event.
Promoters in village halls and small-scale venues, while usually well connected with their audiences, have few dedicated resources at their disposal. Given that arts events for these venues are often touring to as many as 15 such small venues during a tour, its clear that touring companies face a marketing challenge. The need to enhance collaboration, communication and knowledge sharing between marketers and venue promoters has never been greater this is where audience development agencies can provide valuable support and knowledge.
In our experience, a selection of scenarios can make developing audiences a challenging task for all involved particularly if experienced in combination:
- A company could be touring to a venue for the first time.
- An event could be competing with other popular local activities (that are very often not mentioned/known at point of contract).
- A contract (if there is one) might not include crucial agreements on data sharing/collection, etc.
- The product may have to be changed to accommodate the venue, thus losing some of its magic.
- Programming decisions may have had no input from marketing staff.
- There may be no infrastructure to support advance bookings.
- A marketing plan and/or budget may not exist.
- The size of audience and population density may render conventional evaluation methods ineffectual.
On a more positive note, there are several factors that can make the marketing of arts events in rural areas a little bit easier:
- People in rural areas are used to travelling long distances to access many services, including the arts.
- Rural venues can sell out on word-of-mouth marketing alone.
- Community venues can be intimate and interval refreshments affordable!
- Locals often choose to attend more indigenous arts and culture but are also open to experiencing new things due to a lack of continuous choice.
- Rural audiences participate and attend more.
- An encouraging number of people in rural areas book as soon as a venues season brochure falls through their letterbox.
Capacity building
There are also a number of resources available to organisations looking to promote arts events in rural areas. In Scotland, for example, HI~Arts, the development agency for the Highlands & Islands, has offered an online ticketing service for rural areas since 2005 www.thebooth.co.uk. Prior to its launch there was no system for people to buy tickets online for different events within this extensive geographic area.
And in the central belt of Scotland, Glasgow Grows Audiences (GGA) recently created capacity-building initiative, C21st Service, which is bringing together front of house, marketing and box office staff. HI~Arts is currently running a new audience development capacity-building programme, which provides practical tools, training and support for over 200 arts and heritage sector organisations to assist in the development of their marketing activity and audiences. Across Britain, organisations like the Theatrical Management Association offer specialist sessions for those working in the visual arts, and small-scale community or participatory arts.
Recently published research by the Scottish Arts Council (SAC) (Taking Part, 2006) showed that 74% of residents in rural areas had attended an arts or cultural event in the previous 12 months this is slightly less than the figure for all adults in Scotland (77%). This difference deserves analysis. In one GGA rural research project (completed in 19 venues), we found that the majority of the audience was aged 55 or over and 68% were female. A good proportion had booked more than three weeks in advance (34%) and around 20% had travelled more than 20 miles to attend the performance. By comparison, data we compiled across six major Glasgow performing arts venues showed that only 15% book 1528 days in advance, 35% travel 5 miles or less and around 80% visit a venue only once in six months.
Clearly, better collaboration, communication and knowledge sharing between marketers and venue promoters is required to support rural and urban arts organisations in targeting and engaging with the widest possible audience.
Dianne Greig is Audience Development Manager and Charlotte Winter is Market Research Manager at Glasgow Grows Audiences, an audience development agency based in Glasgow. The GGA Conference will be held on 1 June.