Building meaningful participation
Research suggests that organisations are feeling an increased urgency to deepen connections with the communities they serve,…
Editorial Partner: The Audience Agency
Arts Professional is working in partnership with The Audience Agency to present a series of in-depth articles sharing insights into the audiences for arts and culture.
The Audience Agency is a national, not-for-profit consultancy that works with cultural organisations to discover, develop and engage audiences to become more accessible and resilient. Using its audience segmentation and profiling tools, and its staff’s audience development, engagement and digital expertise, The Audience Agency helps arts organisations to understand not only who their audiences are, but who they could be.
From this partner
Win-win for disabled arts-lovers and the sector
While anxiety about attending events remains high amongst disabled people, Anne Torregiani says the Covid online content boom…
Little moments of joy
While audiences are most comfortable returning to outdoor events, organising a festival that can flex around ever-changing re…
Reshaping our places and communities post-Covid
Cultural organisations can play a key role in creating thriving places for people to live, work and visit, but only if they reach…
Can you do more together than alone?
The Audience Agency shares its experience of the pains and gains of collaboration and partnership working.
Reworking what you already have is the opposite of innovation
Covid-19 has proved that what worked back then won’t work now. Patrick Towell says true innovation requires attention,…
Beyond core audiences: culture’s currency lies in staying current
In a constantly changing landscape, the ability to understand and respond to audiences’ changing preferences and behaviours…
Breaking new ground: how do the arts affect mental health?
Research into the relationship between culture, health and wellbeing could unlock an understanding of how the mental health of you…
Making progress: towards a citizen-led future
Cultural democracy is not in the gift of most cultural institutions, but that doesn’t mean there’s no role for them, s…
2020 festivals: there’s no going back
Having flexed our innovation muscles in response to the pandemic, now’s the time to assess what we’ve done and use thi…
Why creatives should design the experiences of their art
Competition in the ‘experience economy’ combined with the circumstances of the pandemic mean it’s time for the c…
The win-win-win of volunteering
Define. Diversify. Develop. This 3-D approach to working with volunteers will ensure that your volunteer programme adds value for…
Time to ditch old-school approaches to audience development
Technocratic, old-school approaches to building audiences have only worked among privileged groups. The sector needs to think hard…
A tale of two regions? Engaging arts audiences in the West Midlands
Striking differences between urban and rural areas make a strong case for a dual regional policy, argue Anne Torreggiani and Zoe P…
The moral case for making money
Patrick Towell explains why underpaying or under-employing workers can never be in an organisation’s long-term interests and…
Can you quantify class?
Asking questions about someone’s social class may feel uncomfortable, but people are less sensitive than you might think. Ma…
Can the arts tackle digital exclusion?
New research highlights how cultural organisations could play a key role in demystifying the internet to non-users, writes Katie M…
Visual arts audiences ‘increasingly dominated by a new generation’
New research finds that visual arts appeal disproportionately to millennials and Generation Z – but warns the sector needs t…
Why European collaboration is worth fighting for
While some in the UK may believe we have little to learn from European collaboration, Anne Torreggiani and Jonathan Goodacre have…
Creative processes at the heart
The place in which a cultural organisation finds itself can determine how it thrives, survives or even dies, but many organisation…
Creativity + innovation = change
Patrick Towell unpicks the crucial differences between creativity and innovation in the context of rapid change in the cultural se…
Making the tea or changing the game?
Anne Torreggiani explains why participating in an EU-funded Erasmus programme has prompted her to re-evaluate the ability of inter…
How to…develop a meaningful digital strategy
As work gets underway on a new industry-wide digital code of best practice, Katie Moffat outlines four fundamental principles unde…
Open to opportunities
Sharing information openly supports innovation and helps build resilience for the good of the whole sector, argues Cimeon Ellerton…
