Here are the key points and questions, raised by a diverse array of arts and cultural organisations.

Why do audiences matter?

“Because they are us”     

                             

“Without them, there is no us”

 

“We need their applause”

 

“That they are appreciating the experience”

We consider the art is the most important thing but just as much, it should be about the engagement. Without a focus on people, on the combined artistic and audience agenda, we are the proverbial one hand clapping.

What do you worry about growing and sustaining audience relationships?

“Finding money” 

 

“Finding ways to make it personal when you are dealing with a mass of people”

 

“Lack of diversity. That we talk to the same people all the time”

• We worry about our budget, our social media knowledge and spreading our message.
• We worry about inconvenience, traffic, other distractions/event conflicts, accessibility in travel, public conveniences and safety of area.

These are all valid concerns. But why are we not worried about innovation.  Your organisation needs to take responsibility for innovation.

What do your audiences worry about? 

Is the perception “quality” and “value”? Your audience doesn’t just worry about it – they demand it. Quality and value are ubiquitous.

What is relevance? 

It is the narrative you need to make your organisation’s work meaningful and purposeful. Programmes like the Olympics or the X Factor don’t just show you the event. They show you the back-story, the personal journey.  And, three minutes later you are emotionally invested.

When it comes to emotional investment, we all do great work in the moment itself. But you had to be there. What does it take for us to get the audience there in the first place? A postcard or an email with a URL isn’t enough. This won’t build emotional investment.

What’s the next event you are going to try and sell your audience?

The Paradox of Choice, by Barry Schwartz talks about how if you give people too many choices they buy less and are less happy with what they buy. So, don’t send your customers everything. Help them with their discovery to make the link.

Audience development cannot just be delegated to the marketing department. Innovation requires all to work together. Read Matt’s blog to learn more his four audience types.

Our Imperative of Innovation

Too often enough we think of our audience having to come to us. For successful participation we must make ourselves relevant in their lives, where they are. Are we ensuring this social and emotional connection, expressing the narrative and keeping them entertained?

How will the world be different five years from today?

How will your organisation adapt or adjust to change? What is an option as a response?

From asking this question, options and opportunities that we hadn’t considered before will follow. We can’t think only about the work. Instead we must embrace new ideas of  how we will engage differently in the arts. People don’t know what they want until YOU understand them so incredibly well that you can show it to them.

Want to hear the whole thing? This talk is also available as a podcast.

Join the Culture Republic family and benefit from a wealth of upcoming events, workshops and networking opportunities. Drop an email to our partnerships manager Ela. We’d love to discuss how we can help your organisation develop and grow, from practical skills building, funding applications to audience research data.

The post Imperative of Innovation from Matt Lehrman appeared first on Culture Republic.

Culture Republic is bringing you a practical research workshop designed for arts and culture organisations, led by Clair Gilchrist, Research Director at Culture Republic.

This one-day workshop will equip you with the essential know-how to take control of your research needs and help your organisation earn more; understand what works and what doesn’t; and move forward with the confidence that comes from building a full, clear picture of your customer environment.

How much research does your organisation need? Do you have the right tools and skills to make the most of the research you have? Choosing methodologies; analysing information; monitoring and tracking performance over time and against targets are all part of the process – but could you be spending your time and money more wisely to deliver more for less? Could you be using research to predict audience behaviours and identify problems in advance? These are just some of the key questions which we will address in this workshop.
You’ll learn how to use research to improve organisational focus, prioritisation and decision making. Austerity has affected every arts and cultural organisation in different ways: we’ll explore ways of stopping old practices and introducing new ones that can make your organisation more efficient, better informed and better prepared for whatever change is on your horizon.
Previous experience of research projects is not necessary.

Who should attend?
• Large or small arts & cultural organisations
• Marketing and leadership teams
• Anyone who has questions about their audience or market and wants to know how to approach getting the answers

You will learn:
• The process of conducting research
• The principles to follow for your research project to have maximum impact
• What to do at each stage of the process
• The secondary sources available to you
• The options available to you for primary research

Feedback from previous sessions:

“This was a really great session, I came away feeling challenged but inspired. Appreciated it being delivered on home turf too, nice not to travel for excellence.”

“Even though we have a course of research in place there was still plenty to take out the session and I was able to get lots of ideas for developing what we are doing.”

Lunch will be provided.

Agenda

10.45 Registration & coffee
11.00 Introductions
11.15 Why research matters & critical success factors
Research planning
12.35 Lunch
13.05 Secondary research
Choosing methodologies
14.25 Break
14.40 Analysing Data
Applying Data
15.20 Discussion and wrap up
16.00 FINISH

Speaker

Clair Gilchrist is Research Director at Culture Republic, managing a wide-ranging portfolio of market intelligence projects, data analysis and research services.She is also the project manager for Culture Republic’s Creative Lives project which focuses on learning and participation in the cultural sector.

If you know others who should attend, please feel free to forward an invitation or tell them about this event.

FAQs

What can I bring to the event?

Please bring your own electrical devices for taking notes.

Where can I contact the organiser with any questions?

If you have any questions prior to the event please contact us on [email protected]

What is the refund policy?

We have a 48hr cancellation policy.  If you are unable to attend the event please let us know 48hrs in advance of the event.  After this time you will not be eligible for a refund.  

The post Asking the Right Questions Intelligence Gathering for Cultural Organisations Jan 2017 appeared first on Culture Republic.

The 4 Types of Audiences

You want to attract, grow, diversify and sustain your audience?

Great! But the biggest mistake you can make is to think of that audience as a single entity. True, “your audience” converged at some point – whether for a particular night’s performance, during the run of a production or exhibition, into your venue, or some other way onto your mailing list. But the happenstance of their intersection doesn’t mean they share the same motivations, preferences or priorities.

Here is a more practical model by which to understand and serve your audience – a model we explore in-depth in my Audiences Everywhere workshop…

Consider a framework of 4 basic audience types on a grid where vertical represents the CAPACITY to participate (i.e. time, money, physical ability and opportunity) and horizontal represents their level of INTEREST:

• Devoted – These the relatively small number of people with high interest and high capacity who already know that they love you, your art and/or your organisation and can’t wait to be part of whatever you are doing next. You want to attract and grow this audience? Then reward them with a “depth” of relationship worthy of their passion and loyalty.

• Oriented – With high interest but lower capacity, think of them as people who subscribe to the local newspaper (God bless them!) and open the arts section eagerly because they know that “their fun” lies somewhere inside those pages. Conventional arts marketing focuses on attracting these audiences the first time – believing that once they’ve had a taste, they’ll return. The numbers speak for themselves: research by TRG Arts reveals that an astounding 76% OF AUDIENCES WHO ATTEND IN ANY ONE YEAR DO NOT RETURN IN THE VERY NEXT YEAR. So, you want to attract and grow this audience? Better to start by recognising that your organisation – like every arts & cultural organisation – is an incredibly leaky bucket and before investing time and resources in advertising for new audiences, we have a major job to plug those holes.

• Asleep – A vast population possesses neither the capacity for nor interest in whatever an arts organisation is offering. We call this “audience” “asleep” but the name is not intended as a pejorative. It solely references our opportunity/responsibility to awaken these folks. To be clear, whenever we proceed from a “pick the low hanging fruit” methodology, we are actually directing that organisations should abandon this population. There’s nothing easy or immediate about the process of awakening this population – but the idea that arts & cultural organisations can survive solely by “picking the low hanging fruit” when demographics, technology, competition and everything else suggests otherwise makes that an outdated and dangerous philosophy. It’s time to CHOP DOWN THAT TREE and replace it with a metaphor that recognises the imperative to serve audiences beyond the ones who come to you most easily.

• Uninspired – How exciting! Here’s the quadrant whose people possess the time & money, but who routinely fill their leisure time with OTHER activities because “they were not raised in households that exposed them at an early age to the value of arts & cultural experiences.” Let’s note that these folks aren’t “uninformed” – so, the solution here isn’t to shout more marketing messages in their direction. Rather, this quadrant reminds us to pursue the mission of our organisations in “Extraordinary” ways – because the only way to inspire the uninspired is to actually inspire them.

Lastly, let’s observe that audience members likely fall into multiple quadrants… A Devoted fan of musical theatre may be Uninspired when viewed from the perspective of classical music or Asian art. Someone who is oriented to jazz may be totally asleep when viewed from the perspective of contemporary dance.

This model of audience engagement provides both a macro and micro perspective on who is your audience and practical ways to cultivate that relationship.

“But eyes are blind. You have to look with the heart.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The post Model of Audience Engagement appeared first on Culture Republic.

Culture Republic is bringing you a practical research workshop designed for arts and culture organisations, led by Clair Gilchrist, Research Director at Culture Republic.

This one-day workshop will equip you with the essential know-how to take control of your research needs and help your organisation earn more; understand what works and what doesn’t; and move forward with the confidence that comes from building a full, clear picture of your customer environment.

How much research does your organisation need? Do you have the right tools and skills to make the most of the research you have? Choosing methodologies; analysing information; monitoring and tracking performance over time and against targets are all part of the process – but could you be spending your time and money more wisely to deliver more for less? Could you be using research to predict audience behaviours and identify problems in advance? These are just some of the key questions which we will address in this workshop.

You’ll learn how to use research to improve organisational focus, prioritisation and decision making. Austerity has affected every arts and cultural organisation in different ways: we’ll explore ways of stopping old practices and introducing new ones that can make your organisation more efficient, better informed and better prepared for whatever change is on your horizon.

Previous experience of research projects is not necessary.

Who should attend?
• Large or small arts & cultural organisations
• Marketing and leadership teams
• Anyone who has questions about their audience or market and wants to know how to approach getting the answers

You will learn:
• The process of conducting research
• The principles to follow for your research project to have maximum impact
• What to do at each stage of the process
• The secondary sources available to you
• The options available to you for primary research

Feedback from previous sessions:

“This was a really great session, I came away feeling challenged but inspired. Appreciated it being delivered on home turf too, nice not to travel for excellence.”
“Even though we have a course of research in place there was still plenty to take out the session and I was able to get lots of ideas for developing what we are doing.”

Lunch will be provided.

Agenda

10.45 Registration & coffee
11.00 Introductions
11.15 Why research matters & critical success factors
Research planning
12.35 Lunch
13.05 Secondary research
Choosing methodologies
14.25 Break
14.40 Analysing Data
Applying Data
15.20 Discussion and wrap up
16.00 FINISH

Speaker

Clair Gilchrist is Research Director at Culture Republic, managing a wide-ranging portfolio of market intelligence projects, data analysis and research services.She is also the project manager for Culture Republic’s Creative Lives project which focuses on learning and participation in the cultural sector.

If you know others who should attend, please feel free to forward an invitation or tell them about this event.

FAQs

What can I bring to the event?

Please bring your own electrical devices for taking notes.

Where can I contact the organiser with any questions?

If you have any questions prior to the event please contact us on [email protected]

What is the refund policy?

We have a 48hr cancellation policy.  If you are unable to attend the event please let us know 48hrs in advance of the event.  After this time you will not be eligible for a refund.  

The post Archived: Asking the Right Questions – Intelligence Gathering for Cultural Organisations appeared first on Culture Republic.

What is equality?
Equality is ensuring individuals or groups of individuals are treated fairly and equally and no less favourably, specific to their needs, including areas of race, gender, disability, religion / belief, sexual orientation and age.
Promoting equality should remove discrimination in all of the aforementioned areas. Bullying, harassment or victimisation is also considered as equality and diversity issues

What is diversity?
Diversity aims to recognise, respect and value people’s differences to contribute and realise their full potential by promoting an inclusive culture for all staff and students.

Interesting Statistics on disability

• Disabled people in Scotland: 1,126,391 (20% of the population)
• People with hearing loss, deafness or deaf: 729,000
• People with serious sight condition: 200,000
• Wheelchair users: 120,000
• Autism Spectrum Disorder: 50,000
• Adults with learning disabilities: 27,391More on disability
• One in 4 people will experience mental health problems.
• One in 5 Scots with disabilities have experienced harassment because of their disability.
• 47% have experienced hate crime because of their disability leaving them feeling scared, embarrassed, humiliated and stressed by the attacks which happened in public spaces.More on Autism
• 1 in 100 people have autism.
• Autism is a spectrum condition.
• Autism can be accompanied by learning disabilities and/or mental health issues.
• Expressing their own emotions can make it very hard for them to navigate the social world.
• Many autistic people have intense and highly focused interest like film.
  
  Living with hearing loss or deafness
• Around 1,012,000 people in Scotland with some degree of hearing loss.
• Approximately 546,000 are over the age of 60.
• An estimated 2 million people in the UK with hearing aids.
• 1 in 6 people use British Sign Language (BSL).
• Deaf users of BSL see themselves as people within a linguistic minority not disabled
• Scotland passed the BSL bill in September 2015
• In Scotland the ratio of qualified interpreters to sign language users is estimated to around 1 interpreter for every 200 sign language users.
  
  You can also check out Glasgow Film’s Visible Cinema Project to explore living with hearing challenges. Key Statistics on dementia
• In Glasgow 18.5% are over the age of 60.
• By 2037, dementia within the 65-74 age group would have grown to 25%.
  

  “In the cinema you are away from the world outside…It’s escapism… I want to see other ways of life… I like the chance to be social.”

  ”I always want to go to these kinds of events. I enjoy them. Good to see outreach to communities.”

  Jodie’s  takeaway points

• Create inclusive and accessible environments for your audience.
• Increase target audiences through the use of accessible technology.
• Collaborate and communicate ‘with’ and not ‘on’ your audience.
• Be truthful and transparent about required resources.
  

  In conclusion:“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood…Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.”
  Universal Declaration of Human Right- 1948
  
  Testimonials from participants at screenings

  “It was great to meet someone like me”
  “Nice for our community to have more options rather than a limited choice of what we can and can’t see”

  “Visible cinema is a fantastic idea. I love the idea of regular caption/subtitles films (both old and new) as well as mixing with other groups of people including hard of hearing. Can’t wait for more of the same!”

The post Equality, Diversity and Access appeared first on Culture Republic.

Jodie Wilkinson, Public Engagement Coordinator at Glasgow Film, joins us for this First Wednesday session looking at how a clear focus on equality and diversity produces exciting and challenging results.

Glasgow Film takes an up close and personal approach to audiences and in 2014, thanks to funding from Creative Scotland’s Promoting Equalities Programme, started to identify audiences they wanted to better engage. Three years on and the legacy of this support has enabled Glasgow Film to carve 4 strategic audience development strategies which have strengthened their audience engagement, developed positive partnership working and educated the Glasgow Film team beyond measure.

In this First Wednesday, Jodie will give you the inside scoop on how to practically engage diverse audiences, drawing on her experience at Glasgow Film. The session will help you consider your own audience engagement practice through the lens of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

You will learn about:
• Creating inclusive and accessible environments for your audiences
• Increasing target audiences through the use of accessible technology
• Strategy planning versus real-time implementation
• Collaborating and communicating ‘with’ and not ‘on’ your audience
• Being truthful and transparent about required resources

Who should attend:
• Programmers and marketers interested in reaching and working with targeted audiences who have access needs
• Learning teams that want to expand their programme
• Staff who have a passion to integrate greater equalities and inclusion into their working practices but find resistance
• Managers responsible for setting strategic plans and targets who want practical examples they can learn from

The key context for thinking about this work will be the Equality Act 2010.

Jodie will also be joined by Clare McAndrew from Culture Republic who has worked closely with Glasgow Film on the evaluation of their audience development strategies

AGENDA
12.15 – Arrival, brown bag lunch
12.30 – Welcome & introduction
12.35 – Partners introduction round the room
12.40 – Jodie Wilkinson, GFT
13.35 – Clare McAndrew, Culture Republic
13.45 – Q&A
14.00 – End

Jodie Wilkinson, Public Engagement Coordinator, Glasgow Film
Jodie has worked as a drama tutor, theatre maker, performer, project manager and programme facilitator. She studied at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and focused on Contemporary Theatre Practice.

At the GFT Jodie is focused on programming accessible events within Equality and Inclusion frameworks, which builds on her experience from her previous post as Creative Learning Programmer at the Arches Theatre. She has worked on creative projects with young people (14-18), young mothers and community groups in Glasgow.

Jodie’s artistic practice also incorporates her experience as a support worker, supporting adults with learning and mental health difficulties.

ABOUT FIRST WEDNESDAYS
Some of the most stimulating sessions take place when there’s the opportunity to step away from the pressure of a busy job, get together with colleagues and share learning.

That’s why we host ‘First Wednesdays’ – a series of topical, bite-sized information sessions taking place on the first Wednesday of each month. They are an open invitation each month for our Partners to regularly drop in our offices to keep up to date with ideas and examples of useful practice we’ve gathered from across the country.

It might be as simple as hearing how other people have successfully tackled the same challenges you face building profitable customer relationships and wider public engagement or learning about the raft of new tools or approaches emerging daily.

Our goal is to inspire fresh thinking, expand current networks and focus on the Most Important Thing … to build new audiences and greater engagement.

If you can’t join us in person, why not sign up for a periscope registration. You will be able to tune in remotely so you can still hear from our speakers from wherever you are!

Join the conversation #1stWed

FAQs

What can I bring to the event?
Please bring your own notetaking devices.

Where can I contact the organiser with any questions?
If you have any questions prior to the event please contact us on [email protected]

The post Archived: September First Wednesday appeared first on Culture Republic.

There’s a printable version for users who want a copy to download and keep.

The post Postcode Infographic appeared first on Culture Republic.

Surveys will be administered by each organisations’ own front of house staff or volunteers. To support this effort, Culture Republic has produced a series of narrated slideshows on collection methodology and sampling.

The training has been broken up into eight separate sections. Participants are encouraged to watch the whole series. The full training can be undertaken in less than an hour; the total run time for all eight sections is 51 minutes. A text version of this training is available. Please email for a copy of this alternative format.

*The flashcard mentioned in this video is available on this page.

Who will this help?

• Front of house staff members who will be administering the survey
• Volunteers who will be administering the survey
• Managers who want to make sure their staff’s collection methodology is robust

About the Visual Arts Scotland pilot project

Culture Republic is running an audience research pilot project in partnership with the Audience Agency, helping Scotland’s museums and galleries set their audience profiles in context alongside peers across the UK. Participants become part of a Scotland-wide network of arts venues and organisations, working together to grow our collective understanding of audience behaviours, profiles and motivations around the country.

Together, we will create a new resource for everyone who shares an interest in growing visual arts audiences in Scotland. Combining postcode data, social media information and intelligence gathered through in-venue surveys, we will build a real-time, multi-dimensional picture of where, how and why people engage with the visual arts.

The post Research training videos for front of house museum and gallery staff appeared first on Culture Republic.

Our Population Profile on Families is made up of five documents, covering:

• The Essentials: what you need to know about family audiences in Scotland
• Families Welcome
• Family Types
• Working with Families
• Further Resources

Culture Republic Population Profiles are designed for anyone involved in marketing, programming or producing work for Scottish audiences. They put the facts at your fingertips, providing you with aggregated insights, case studies and handy links for further reading that will inform, inspire and connect you in your work to engage with populations that are local to you.

The post Families Population Profiles: The Essentials appeared first on Culture Republic.

Culture Republic are piloting a short, in-venue audience survey that will explore visitor profiles and motivations in partnership with the Audience Agency. It will allow participating organisations to compare their audiences with peers in Scotland and across the UK at the touch of a button.

Because surveys will be administered by each organisation’s own Front of House staff or volunteers Culture Republic are offering a free training session for all Visual Arts Scotland survey participants on collection methodology and sampling.

Who should attend?

• Front of House staff members who will be administering the survey
• Volunteers who will be administering the survey
• Managers who want to pass the training on to staff and volunteers

Agenda

10.15     Arrival and coffee

10.30     Introductions and what you need to know

10.45     What’s happening with the data?

11.00     Sampling

11.15     Interview tips and techniques

11.30     The questionnaire

11.45     Tricky questions?

12.00     Data collection and entry

12.15     Best practice

12.25     Q&A close

Responses can be gathered via paper survey, web link or tablet app – the training will support everyone, no matter what medium you plan to use.

About the Visual Arts Scotland pilot project

Culture Republic has launched a new audience research pilot project in partnership with the Audience Agency, helping Scotland’s museums and galleries set their audience profiles in context alongside peers across the UK. By getting involved, you’ll become part of a Scotland-wide network of arts venues and organisations, working together to grow our collective understanding of audience behaviours, profiles and motivations around the country.

Museums, galleries and visual arts exhibition spaces all over the country are invited to participate. Together, we will create a new resource for everyone who shares an interest in growing visual arts audiences in Scotland. Combining postcode data, social media information and intelligence gathered through in-venue surveys, we will build a real-time, multi-dimensional picture of where, how and why people engage with the visual arts.

FAQs

What can I bring to the event?

Please bring your own survey with additional question themes.

Where can I contact the organiser with any questions?

If you have any questions prior to the event please contact us on [email protected]

The post Archived: Glasgow Front of House Research training for Visual Arts Scotland appeared first on Culture Republic.