The UK?s ageing demographic has almost reached the status of a cultural cliché. In 2000, the Henley Centre Report (The Arts Landscape in 2010), cited the increase in people of pensionable age, and found that 63.7% of people aged 55 and over do not attend the arts (TGI 99/00). While targeting older audiences is not a new area of activity in the arts, New Audiences funding has supported a range of projects which provided valuable new insights into developing this group as attenders and participants.
Projects which engage with older audiences are spread throughout the various funding strands of New Audiences, with the smallest Regional Challenge projects receiving only a few hundred pounds. Many projects sought to balance their impact across the age-range, from young people in schools to intergenerational projects or events aimed at people over 50. It is clear however that older people want to choose from a wide variety of good quality products, and do not just want special programmes for the elderly, or to be specifically categorised or targeted as ?elderly? people.
Barriers and opportunities
Older people experience similar barriers to many other target groups: ticket price, lack of information, lack of transport. However, the personal situation of many older people also creates opportunities such as the programming of daytime events and cultivating the social aspect of ancillary events such as pre-performance talks, backstage tours, workshops and lunches. Midlands Art Centre successfully took this approach in order to encourage more people to visit their exhibitions.
Midlands Arts Marketing developed a project to address some of the social barriers that some older people face in attending the arts, recognising that many older people stop attending the arts due to illness, or on the death of a partner or friend with similar interests. The Time Out project brought together Buxton Opera House, Phoenix Arts in Leicester and Nottingham Playhouse to offer older people a choice of theatre, dance, opera and films. As well as facilitating a relationship between the three participating venues, the project developed partnerships with group organisers and individual members of active over 50s groups, including the University of the Third Age, Cruse, social clubs and retirement associations.
Full speed ahead
The lack of transport is as potent a barrier to older people as to the young ? often because they do not own a car. Tullie House, a gallery and museum in central Carlisle, used its small grant to develop a taxi service for older people who lived in outlying villages, where bus services were almost non-existent. By providing free taxi trips, the gallery attracted a total of 640 people through their scheme, of whom 357 were senior citizens.
Equal Arts, an organisation specialising in projects with older people, developed a membership scheme, called Getting There, in Newcastle and Gateshead. They worked with venues including BALTIC, the Shipley Art Gallery, the Theatre Royal in Newcastle and the Little Theatre in Gateshead. Members may make up to 12 journeys in a year. They pay a flat fee of £5 for 3 months, in return for which they received substantially subsidised fares from a taxi firm selected specially by Equal Arts. This type of scheme has more potential for a long-term legacy; Alice Thwaites of Equal Arts is currently applying for further funding to continue the project. ?We are going to double the membership,? she says. ?At the moment there are 85 members so we are going to get about 150 this year. My plan is to get funding on a regional level from rural transport and local authorities as well.? She points out that the members are now involved in choosing which arts activities ? including participatory events ? they wish to include in the scheme, and adds, ?If other arts organisations are interested in this idea as a model, we are very keen to help other people develop similar projects.?
The cultural landscape
Recognising the artistic interests of older people has proved to be a key to success elsewhere. Tullie House?s project was linked with an exhibition called Collecting Crazy, which invited people to bring and show their own collections. Cultural Cinema and Retired People, carried out by Tyneside Cinema, developed partnerships with Age Concern, the University of the Third Age and Proctor and Gamble?s Retired Staff Association. The venue increased its audience for cultural cinema and developed new programming strategies, such as changing the timing of film-showings, in order to accommodate them. In Brief Journey, the Oxford Touring Theatre Company worked with the Hampshire-based Forest Forge Theatre Company to create a series of reminiscence workshops and creative sessions to encourage older audiences. These were built around OTTC?s tour of Rehearsing Brief Encounter and Forest Forge?s piece Bedside Manners, which was performed in residential homes.
The strongest message from much of this work is that, in common with other forms of audience development, projects targeting older people enrich the culture of arts organisations by opening them up to new influences and by further embedding them in their communities.
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