A sprint or a marathon?

In response to Sir Brian McMaster’s review of how artistic excellence can encourage wider and deeper engagement with the arts by audiences, I have to call into question how measured McMaster’s judgement was when he made this specific recommendation:

“I recommend that to overcome the endemic ‘it’s not for me’ syndrome and building on the success of free admission to museums and galleries, for one week admission prices are removed from publicly funded organisations.”

If we are collectively committed to ‘wider and deeper’ engagement as a sector, then we have to acknowledge that the ‘it’s not for me’ syndrome is not, from an audience point of view, simply about a financial barrier to engagement. There are other socio-demographic factors – principally education (or lack thereof) – that have a more powerful influence on audience perceptions of, and therefore engagement with, the arts.

Analysing the model of ‘success’ McMaster refers to, we see that the impact of free entry to museums in 2001 did stimulate an increase in visitor numbers. However, the most significant growth appears to have been among groups that traditionally have always visited museums and galleries¹. Further to this research, ‘Taking Part’² tells us that affordability is not a significant barrier to attendance, but that non-attenders are much more likely to express that they are ‘not really interested’ or, to a lesser extent that ‘it’s difficult to find the time’. Interestingly, the MORI impact report also identified that 40% of members of the public were not even aware of free entry to museums and galleries.

What, then, might we perceive to be the biggest barrier to arts attendance, and how might we start to address this effectively for the longer term? The conclusions drawn about access to culture by Orian Brook from her project at the University of St. Andrews are very helpful. Using Audiences London’s Snapshot database and census data, she found that the strongest predictor for arts attendance relates to higher education degree level qualifications. Taking the long view, we need to capitalise on the role of education, realising opportunities to work with Higher Education Institutions and to support the Children’s Plan, in order to help us become an arts-going nation. In the short to mid term, as Catherine Bunting comments, it’s time we started that ‘inclusive conversation’³ to help more people feel that the arts are for them and that we want them to engage or participate at whatever level they feel comfortable with them.

A national PR campaign would be a positive first step towards changing public perceptions of the sector and could encourage greater interest in what’s on offer. But the focus of such a PR campaign would have to be on encouraging wider and deeper engagement by the broader community to deliver longer-term impact. There’s much less to be achieved, and that only in the short-term, by throwing our doors open for a week of free cultural activities if it’s only going to appeal to those who currently attend and who are already quite happy spending money on something they enjoy – superficial or profound.

Finally, to pick up on McMaster’s view of ‘simplistic targets’. I would ask him and the DCMS to reconsider how arts organisations are to judge whether audience development is superficial, wide or deep without any clear and consistent guidance on how to achieve this. This report seems to disregard the value that Taking Part and Audience Data UK are now starting to contribute to the public engagement agenda.

On the basis of McMaster’s recommendations, will the DCMS be focusing its future policy on sprinting towards 2012 for a quick win, or would it rather (as the audience development agencies would) see the sector limbering up for a more stretching marathon that will ultimately keep the arts in excellent shape from 2013 and beyond?