Creative Scotland are going to require every regularly funded organisation to have an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion plan in place as a condition of funding so it’s an area all arts and cultural organisations will have to start thinking about (if they haven’t already).
January’s podcast looks at how Scottish arts organisations are serving audiences with disabilities and what you can learn from some of the great practice that’s taking place across the country.
One of the first things to think about is how disabled audiences are defined. Culture Republic recommend the legal definition in the Equality Act (2010). It states that a person has a disability if: “they have a physical or mental impairment and the impairment has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on the person’s ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities”. Though not particularly user friendly, it highlights the wide range of people, conditions, and potential access requirements that are out there and that you have to think about.
Despite the standard wheelchair iconography, disabilities are often invisible. Disabled audiences include people with sensory impairments, progressive conditions, auto-immune conditions, developmental conditions, learning disabilities, mental health conditions, people with HIV, cancer or MS. It’s clear from this short list that lots of disabilities are hidden and that many people who would fit the official definition may not self-define as disabled.
To give us a picture of what good practice looks like on the ground we talked to real-life practitioners: Jodie Wilkinson, Public Engagement Co-Ordinator for Glasgow Film Theatre (GFT) and Esther Currie, Marketing and Communications Manger for Macrobert Arts Centre. Both organisations have been part of Creative Scotland’s promoting equalities programme. They stand out for the exemplary work they’re doing to serve audiences with disabilities.
The GFT offers:
Macrobert offers:
Both offer free tickets for carers or support workers.
There are practical, physical and communication barriers that organisations can work to remove to improve access for disabled audiences to an event or venue. An essential first step is to support your staff with additional training. Make sure there is senior support for both formal and informal learning. Organisations need to be able to make mistakes and open themselves up to learning from experience. Both Macrobert and the GFT show a mindset, characterised by openness to new experience, willingness to make mistakes and a desire to learn from experience, which makes the difference in their success.
Culture Republic have created an in depth population profile to support your efforts to connect with disabled audiences and have published guidance and research previously for arts organisations just getting stared in this field. Euan’s Guide and flip offer practical training and tips that can give staff more confidence to engage disabled audiences. Additional recommendations in this episode were to: Solar Bear, a specialist theatre company for deaf and hard of hearing audiences and performers and DSDC – the Dementia Services Development Centre at Stirling University.
If we look at Scotland’s population, the census shows about 20% of people have a long-term activity limiting health issue or disability. About 7% of people in Scotland have a physical disability – but there are only about 120,000 wheelchair users in Scotland. The rest is made up of, 7% deaf or partial hearing loss, 4% mental health conditions, just over 2% blind or partially sighted, 2% learning difficulty, 0.6% developmental disorders, 0.5% learning disability.
Only about 17% of people with a disability are born with their disability and 11% of people with a disability are over 60. So, with age comes the increased likelihood of disability. This is particularly true of acquiring a physical disability (such as sight loss, hearing loss, limited mobility etc.). In contrast, learning difficulties, disabilities and developmental disorders are more common among the younger population – this might be due to diagnosis and increased recognition of these conditions.
Its not just a question of physical access, some people with disabilities may be limited by circumstances. People with a disability are more likely to be economically inactive, retired, to never have worked, to be in the lowest social grades, and to have no qualifications compared to the population. At age 16, young disabled people are at least twice as likely to be not in employment, education or training as their non-disabled peers and three times more likely by the age of 19.
We know from the Scottish Household Survey that disabled people attend and participate in arts and culture in Scotland but it is less than those with neither a long-term illness nor disability. For example, for classical music audiences we see that 8% of those with neither a disability or long-term illness attend but 5% of those with a disability and 4% of those with a long-term illness attend. This trend is consistent across all art forms. In the survey, people with a disability, long-term illness or both said that they didn’t attend because their health was not good enough.
Culture Republic collects box office data from across the country and this can give us a picture of the booking patterns for disabled audiences. It shows that last year, about 62,000 tickets were sold using a discount code that indicates disability (1% of total tickets). 38% of these were under the catch-all code of ‘disabled’ and 51% were carer tickets. This probably underestimates the actual situation but it gives a rough idea to what is going on.
If you have a box office and want a good idea of what is going on within your audience then have a look at your discount codes and how you use them – the more accurate and clear they are the better the picture you will get. If you don’t have a box office (or even if you do) you can explore the population breakdown in your local area using our interactive map.
Top tips to remember:
Do check out the resource pack linked to this episode, a downloadable guide around audiences with disabilities, which can help you get started or improve your own practice in this space. You might also be interested in our work with the GFT evaluating their access and equalities measures.
Listen on Soundcloud above or subscribe on iTunes or on Stitcher.
Thanks to Jodie Wilkinson at Glasgow Film Theatre and Esther Currie at Macrobert Arts Centre for sharing their stories. Reach them on Twitter @glasgowfilm and @macrobert.
Audio production by studio engineer Barry Reid – on Twitter @barryspad.
In and out music by Drew Hammond of Mesura Music – on Twitter @DrYouHammond.
Culture Republic is on Twitter @culture_public and presenter Ashley Smith Hammond is on Twitter @AnAshleyAbroad. Use the hashtag #CRpodcast to let us know you’re listening.
Please help us spread the word by rating and reviewing this podcast and share it on social media!
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Our Population Profile on Deprivation is made up of four documents, covering:
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.
]]>We’ve combined data from the Scottish Household Survey, Scotland Census and TGI Surveys to reveal at a glance the differences in demography and cultural engagement across Scotland’s 32 Local Authority areas.
This resource is for anyone engaged in growing or developing audiences for culture in Scotland. Use it to discover:
At Culture Republic, we measure the relation between location and levels of engagement; potential and known audiences; population profiles and cultural programming, to help Scotland’s cultural organisations make informed decisions around programming, partnerships, segmentation and strategy.
Explore our other resources, or contact us for advice and support as you map, measure or grow the audiences that matter to you.
]]>This month the Culture Republic podcast is looking at audiences who are experiencing social exclusion in Scotland.
Poverty and deprivation have been part of Scotland’s social and political mix for centuries, especially in the West of Scotland, where historically poverty has been most endemic. In the past, the arts have responded with things like the Citizen Theatre’s commitment to tickets for 50 pence, socially engaged work from companies like 7:84 theatre company or the Third Eye Centre’s touring programme — the impact of which reached across the whole of rural and urban Scotland. In this episode, we look at the contemporary work that artists are doing with audiences experiencing social exclusion.
The research
Social exclusion is more than just poverty. The Government’s Social Exclusion Unit defines it as what “happens when people or places suffer from a series of problems such as unemployment, discrimination, poor skills, low incomes, poor housing, high crime, ill health and family breakdown”.
There is a lot of information available via the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD). A free resource that anyone can use. The Index uses this series of problems, to identify area concentrations of multiple deprivation, and a scale to show which areas are more or less deprived than others. The combined factors are as follows:
And it is the mix of these factors that gives a richer picture of the root of a problem in an area, for example Crime may be the root cause in one deprived area, while housing and income may be more of a factor in another. This makes the experience of social deprivation unique to each individual. We can, however, see how the patterns of deprivation impact whole communities in particular ways in different areas of the country. It is also important to note that not everyone who lives in a deprived area is deprived, and not all deprived individuals live in deprived areas.
Households in the most deprived areas of Scotland are more likely to have school age children in the home, more likely to access benefits or income support and more likely to be in socially rented housing. For those living in areas of high deprivation, it takes on average three times as long to reach a GP than those living in areas of least deprivation. Crime levels are polar opposites at each end of the deprivation scale, and the high presence of derelict sites in the most deprived areas is detrimental to communities. All of these will naturally impact how people access arts and culture.
The majority of the most socially deprived zones are across the central belt of Scotland, although there is at least one zone in all local authorities in mainland Scotland. The communities are a mix of urban and rural. The West of Scotland has the highest prevalence with almost half (44%) of the population experiencing social exclusion. Just about two thirds (67%) of the most socially deprived zones in the country are clustered in Glasgow and the West of Scotland.
In the context of this complexity, it is important for organisations to understand local patterns of exclusion because it will strongly impact how and why people connect with their work and organisations.
This month Culture Republic talked to Rob Gallagher from Impact Arts, a community arts organisation that uses the arts and creativity to enable and empower social change, and Kate Wimpress from North Edinburgh Arts, an arts venue in Edinburgh’s Fourth Ward. Both of these organisations have been working with socially excluded communities for decades. Rob drew on his experience delivering projects for children and young people, especially in the East End of Glasgow and across the West of Scotland. Kate highlighted NEA work in their garden space and with families and young people.
Across both interviews a number of key themes arose, including: the necessity of working in partnership with other agencies and third sector organisations; removing barriers to access or participation including cost, physical access / transport and significantly building confidence to remove any emotional barriers to participation.
What came through strongly was the importance of long term commitment to building relationships – with audiences and partners. The issues related to social deprivation are so complex that one-off interventions are likely to have limited success.
CREDITS
Listen on Soundcloud above or subscribe on iTunes or on Stitcher.
Thanks to North Edinburgh Arts and Impact Arts for sharing their stories. Reach them on Twitter @northedinarts and Impact Arts @impact_arts.
Culture Republic is @culture_public on Twitter and presenter Ashley Smith Hammond is @AnAshleyAbroad. Use the hashtag #CRpodcast to let us know you’re listening.
Audio production by studio engineer Barry Reid – on Twitter @barryspad.
In and out music by Drew Hammond of Mesura Music – he is @DrYouHammond on Twitter.
This podcast is about how arts and cultural projects and products are reaching out to connect with different segments of the Scottish population. Please help us spread the word by rating and reviewing this podcast or sharing it on social media.
]]>This month Culture Republic looks at how Scotland’s artists and arts organisations are engaging with older audiences in Scotland.
We are defining an older person as someone over pensionable age (usually around 65). This segment of Scotland’s population is growing faster than other population segments.
Between Scotland’s 2001 and 2011 census we saw this group go from making up 18.6% of the population to 20.1% (942 thousand older people to 1 million and 64 thousand – an increase of 122,000 in 10 years). This increase is affected by the Scottish population growth and equates to 357 thousand households across Scotland, which is expected to go up in line with the population. An ageing population is something that is happening across Europe, but Scotland in particular will have the largest increase of older people within the UK.
Older people have specific needs in terms of communication, programming and practical support. Poor health is correlated with age, so it can be a barrier to arts attendance or participation. But there is a wide variation across the group in terms of levels of support needs.
To make sense of the pattern, we work with a classification between ‘third age’ arts participants who are fit and well and ‘fourth age’ participants who have more significant additional support needs. The benefits of participation are clear though for both groups – better health, less social isolation and enjoyment of day-to-day life.
The market is important as this group tends to be retired and have more free time. Barriers can include: the financial costs of participation or attendance along with logistical challenges (travelling to the venue), access issues (lots of stairs or lack of parking) or timings (evening events can be challenging if patrons have to travel at night).
This episode features interviews with Louise Crichton from Culture Republic our in-house expert on ageing audiences; Martha Pollard from the Scottish Poetry Library on the Living Voices project and Emma Young from Dance House on the Still Dancing performance group. We explore the Living Voices project as an example of good practice for ‘fourth age’ arts participants and Still Dancing as good practice for ‘third age’ dancers. These are both participatory projects but much of the good practice can still provide learnings for arts venues and programmers.
Web bonus – More on booking patterns for Scottish audiences
According to the 2014 Scottish Household Survey, 72% of those aged 60-74 are attending arts events, including cinema, at least once a year whilst only 53% of 75+ year olds are attending once a year. So according to this data, older people are less likely to attend compared to other age groups.
However, in terms of households attending arts events at ticketed venues and festivals, when we look at Culture Republic’s unique data set of box office returns from across Scotland (35 box office feeds for 48 organisations) we see that 71,000 older households (5% of arts attenders in our database) attended an arts event in the last year (FY14/15). They tend to be early bookers and they tend to attend more than once a year.
This is particularly relevant to note, because early bookers and repeat bookers generate disproportionate revenue for box offices.
For more information about arts for ageing audiences we recommend the Baring Foundation’s report Ageing Artfully: Older People and Participatory Arts in the UK. To understand more about the third age/fourth age classification you can explore this helpful video from the Open University.
CREDITS
Listen on Soundcloud above or subscribe on iTunes or on Stitcher.
Connect with Scottish Poetry Library or on Twitter @byleaveswelive
Connect with Dance House on Twitter @dancehousegla
Audio production by studio engineer Barry Reid – @barryspad
In and out music by Drew Hammond of Mesura Music
]]>Our Population Profile on Disability is made up of seven documents, covering:
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.
]]>Culture Republic Population Profiles are a series of six practical fact files, 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 become a more accessible organisation and engage with populations that are local to you.
The Access All Areas conference explored some of the resources that are available to help artists, leaders and marketers connect more effectively with the diverse groups represented in our local communities.
The driving idea behind the conference was to show that when cultural leaders, artists and entrepreneurs act in the interests of everyone, creative inspiration and engagement grows.
To download the transcript, simply click the on the document image or link below.
]]>The driving idea behind the conference was to show that when cultural leaders, artists and entrepreneurs act in the interests of everyone, creative inspiration and engagement grows.
Video from the conference sessions is now available for delegates to revisit and for those who weren’t able to attend to benefit from the archived content. The day’s full agenda is below. Follow the links from each session to see its content.
The events of the day were webcast live and included simultaneous, live, BSL interpretation (the inset box) and Electronic Note Taking (ENT). All videos include these accessibility features.
Credits: Glocast (webcasting) Sign Language Interactions (ENT & BSL)
]]>This month’s podcast takes a look at family audiences in Scotland. Families are a broad category with lots of internal diversity but at its core it is a mixed age groups of adults and children attending or participating in an arts experience together.
We wanted to find out from arts organisations what its like in real life to try and connect effectively with family audiences to highlight the practical challenges where arts organisations can learn from each other. To do this we talked to Louise Dingwall of Platform (a Glasgow venue that programmes a range of work for families) and Amy Briggs of Starcatchers (an Edinburgh-based touring organisation that is dedicated to making work for very young audiences).
Family audiences have similarities in terms of the practical considerations – like buggy parking or changing stations. But, in other ways they reflect the wider trends around the growing diversity of the country. Families’ time and finances are also under pressure and this influences their ability to attend or participate. Programmers and marketers need to be sensitive to these constraints and provide appropriate opportunities. Listening to Louise and Amy it is clear that they are staying close to their audiences, constantly communicating with them to refine the creative offer and improve service.
Both interviews highlighted how loyal family audiences can be once they’ve come to trust you as an arts provider but also how this loyalty can add to the challenge of programming work for family audiences. When families have more than one child and work is produced for a particular age range, arts organisations need to be flexible and stay in close communication – with audiences and with artists – to navigate this challenge successfully.
Louise and Amy were clear that work for family audiences is not limited to performing arts work and both reflected on the similar needs of the audience is around practicalities for programming visual arts work or for participatory events.
This episode looks at families across Scotland and explores the value, which is not simply monetary, of engaging widely with families as arts participants and attendees. Early arts attendance helps to build lifelong habits and bring in new audiences by introducing non attenders to the arts.
THE NUMBERS
Let’s start with Scotland’s population to contextualise what we’re talking about.
According to the National Records of Scotland:
What about arts attendance? At Culture Republic we use Mosaic Scotland, which is a tool that segments Scotland’s 2.4m households based on demographic characteristics, lifestyles and behaviours. According to this tool, just over 20% of the households are likely to have children at home – around 523 thousand households. We can then marry this data with additional data to get an insight around arts attendance patterns.
Culture Republic collects box office data from across the country and this can give us a picture of the booking patterns for family audiences. This is box office data only so it misses out a lot of non-ticketed arts attendance – like going to the museum and community or participation events – but it is still very useful for an indication.
We looked at ticket purchases in fiscal year 2013-14. Our ticketing database in that period was drawing together 35 box office feeds for 48 organisations. In that year there were 745,182 tickets sold to the three Mosaic Scotland groups most likely to have children in the household. In our dataset this made up about 20% or about a fifth of the marketplace. In terms of booking patterns, we could see that:
If we return to the Culture Republic box office dataset, there’s one more pattern. Instead of looking at types of households, we can look at types of programming. Again, using the FY2013-14 data, we looked at ticket sales for events coded as children’s or family – this equalled about 295k tickets sold and yielded over £2m in revenue for Scottish arts organisations. In this group repeat bookers were even more important. Repeat bookers bought 162k tickets – or approximately 55% of all of the tickets sold. And this yielded £961k – 47% of the total revenue for family and children’s events.
It is clear both from the numbers and experiences on the ground that family audiences are loyal and valuable for building relationships across a lifetime.
CREDITS
Listen on Soundcloud above or subscribe on iTunes or on Stitcher.
Thanks to Amy from Starcatchers & Louise from Platform. Connect with both of them on Twitter @starcatchersuk and @PlatformGlasgow
If you want to learn more about Scotland’s audiences you can get in touch with us or tweet @culture_public
Audio production by studio engineer Barry Reid – @barryspad
Music by Drew Hammond of Mesura Music
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