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When you're looking to develop a new audience, where do you begin? Examining the changes in society, whether on a local or a national basis, is a good start. Responding to those changes is the challenge: planning strategically for change and finding creative ways forward.

Some of these changes have already been identified through New Audiences: increasing competition for leisure time, a larger number of 'time poor' people and a requirement for more flexibility in meeting the needs of potential and actual audiences.

The 'Henley' Report
In 2000, Arts Council England commissioned the Henley Centre to research and report on how the arts are likely to be affected by social trends. The report ('The Arts Landscape in 2010') projected striking demographic changes: that there would be 2 million fewer people aged 25-35 and 3 million more people aged 45-64.

Eric Orme, of Cultural Intelligence, one of the research teams currently pulling together the findings of the Programme, pointed out that "Henley 2010 identifies a number of macro forces that are changing the way we live our lives, but I think that even post-New Audiences Programme, we are still struggling to understand how these changes should influence the way we present the arts." One key finding was that "the 'time poor' don't represent a coherent market you can easily target. Time poverty is just a characteristic of many different target markets."

Findings relate to families, to flexible opening times, to new settings for the arts and to new ways of presenting the arts.

Family friendly
Overall, the Programme has supported 65 projects targeting the family. Recent work has included a new partnership between Arts Council England and the National Family and Parenting Institute (NFPI), aiming to raise awareness of the arts among families. Parents' Week 2002 started with an arts awareness campaign and resulted in an advocacy video encouraging families to participate. Examples of family projects and resources generated through the Programme are to be found on the website.

Opening times
Making the arts available at the right time is crucial for the time poor. Research into the impact of late night openings, lunchtime and rush hour events provided important information on presentation and customer care.

New Audiences evaluated Love Art Later (2002), a project which involved nine gallery venues in London opening for evening sessions. Gerri Morris, of Morris Hargreaves McIntyre, the researchers commissioned to evaluate the project, identified "a 'lost tribe' of should-be gallery visitors... These are the 'time-poor', people who love art and get a huge amount from it, but...they only find the time for galleries if we change our ways of making them available." 67% of attenders said that the convenient timing appealed to them.

Any time, any place...
Place and space is as important a factor as timing. Siting projects outside a dedicated performance or exhibition space can be challenging and risky, but it can form an important part of drawing in new audiences. Successes have emerged in relations to transport initiatives, projects based in rural areas and the use of new technologies including new broadcasting partnerships - themes which Essential Audiences plans to explore in future.

The New Contexts strand of New Audiences created exciting work in non-traditional locations such as clubs and festivals to increase access. The 42 projects funded under this strand included live and mixed media, photography and dance taken to club venues and new work introduced to festivals audiences.

Stepping out
A number of projects physically took art to people. London Musici's project Live Music in Atria introduced music events into corporate buildings where enormous spaces remain under-used. Promoting the atrium of a London office building as a cultural space benefited workers, their families, local schools and the wider community.

The Bristol Art Library was a specially-created portable lending library the size of a suitcase, which was taken on tour to seaside hotels, using public transport wherever possible. The tour included performances and events as well as generating nearly 650 new library members - a real legacy from a short-term, small-scale project.

Beyond the Page
Resources linked to Essential Audiences are available at http://www.newaudiences.org.uk

- 'The Arts Landscape in 2010': The Henley Centre for Forecasting
- 'Placing Art in New Contexts: a summary report to Arts Council England': BMRB
- 'Family Friendliness: an audit of recent research and recommendations for the development of family audiences in the arts': Pam Pfrommer
- 'New audiences in Australia - a report on sharing family friendly practice at the International Audience Development Forum in Adelaide, 2003': Catherine Rose
- 'So Many Galleries, So Little Time': Morris, Hargreaves and MacIntyre 2002.

Feedback to Essential Audiences can be sent to audiences@artsprofessional.co.uk.
Essential Audiences is compiled and written by Catherine Rose.

For more information about the New Audiences Programme, contact the
New Audiences Programme, Arts Council England, 14 Great Peter Street, London SW1P 3NQ. t: 020 7973 6497 f: 020 7973 6791 e: newaudiences@artscouncil.org.uk textphone: 020 7973 6564