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Audiences UK has been born in a week when politicians have been discussing a major national audience development initiative. This may have been why the arts leads of some of the political parties in England have been so welcoming to Audiences UK and so interested in the Audience Development Agency network.
 

None of them seem to be heaping praise on A Night Less Ordinary (ANLO), the free ticket initiative for under 26 year olds. And what do we think? If the government gave us £2.5 million with no strings and told us to go away and develop new young audiences, would giving away tickets be our preferred approach?
 

No. And certainly not in an untargeted way.
 

We know that’s the view of lots of theatres too, because we work with them. We also know that there’s some innovative work taking place to use the scheme and the funding to develop and sustain attendance from some sections of the population that don’t traditionally attend. These venues may not be hitting their targets, but they are doing excellent work and delivering great value for the investment. We need to identify these success stories and share the learning around the country. That’s what Audiences UK is here to do.
 

We’re committed to helping to ensure the money invested in the scheme does the most it can to develop audience development practice in the UK. We’re also committed to lobby for future investment in national audience development initiatives. When ANLO was launched, Ed Vaizey said: ‘What really worries me is that if the initiative doesn’t go well, it will damage any attempt to do something similar in the future, because people will say “we tried that and it didn’t work”...’. It worries us too! But fortunately, from our conversations and from their policy documents, it appears that the main parties in England all still seem to be committed to increasing access to culture.
 

ANLO may not be the scheme that we would have wanted, but we would still applaud any government that found extra money specifically to increase cultural engagement. It would be great if they talked to us about the basic design though, not just the delivery.
 

So let’s not just dismiss ANLO, let’s learn from it. Let’s learn from the success stories from venues who are reaching new audiences through innovative practice. Let’s remember that the most effective approaches to developing cultural engagement come through the accumulated learning of the Audience Development Agencies and the sector.
 

And, if we need targets, let’s make them achievable and realistic, not just very large round numbers.
 

David Brownlee, 18 March 2010 

At a time when public funding is under increased pressure, many arts organisations are now doing the most they can to argue why they should sustain and grow their resources.  They will do it well.  They are focussed, articulate, and can demonstrate the quality of their work.

But who is speaking for the audiences of today and tomorrow?  Who is putting the case for the 85% of the population in Wigan and Ashford who aren’t satisfied with the local provision of theatres and concert halls?  Who is questioning why the people who buy the fewest Lottery tickets benefit the most from Arts Lottery Funding?

This week we’re launching Audiences UK with a document that describes what we think needs to be done to increase public engagement in culture in challenging times.  We want to make sure the public view is considered in debates about cultural policy in the lead up to the 2010 UK General Elections.  They will have a major impact on priorities for culture in England in the coming years.  Next year we will be focussing on the other Nations in their lead up to major elections.

In the meantime we’ll be doing all we can to get people thinking and shape the debate around public engagement in culture.  This is the first of what we hope will be a weekly blog.  As well as thoughts from the staff of Audiences UK and the family of Audience Development Agencies, we’ll be welcoming guest bloggers too. We’ll also be sending out a weekly alert about interesting things that are happening in different parts of the UK.

Audiences UK is here to help organisations learn from the best audience development practice within and beyond the UK, and help funders and policy makers make sense of research and data so more of the people can enjoy great cultural experiences.  We’re here to make the case for the audiences of today and tomorrow, but we’ll only do this by working in partnership with artists, arts organisations, local government and national policy makers and funders. 

Arts Council England state they exist to get ‘great art to everyone’.  Graphically, this often appears as a very big ‘art’ and a much smaller ‘everyone’.  We believe in ‘great art’ for ‘everyone’ too.  The UK needs well funded and supported arts organisations that can innovate and take risks.  But the public also needs opportunities to engage in high quality cultural experiences with organisations that understand how best to reach out to and work with diverse audiences. 

We don’t want the ‘art’ to get smaller, but with your help we would like the ‘everyone’ to be a lot bigger in the coming years.

David Brownlee, 11 March 2010