I’ve spent a stimulating couple of days up in Edinburgh talking about hot topics in Scotland around audience development. I was fascinated, and rather concerned, that there seems to be mood in some quarters that cultural organisations ‘should be focusing on their core audiences’ in order to ensure ‘sustainability’ in these challenging financial times.
As in England, festivals and venues in Edinburgh were breaking records for attendance and income last year, despite the recession. I think we’re in danger of being infected by the doom and gloom in other sectors rather than being encouraged by the good news in our own. If organisations do stop looking to develop and grow new audiences, records will stop being broken and income and audiences will slide. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy that could spiral the sector further and further down.
There is not a choice for cultural organisations between either ‘developing audiences’ or ‘ensuring financial stability’. If you develop new audiences and keep them coming back, you will help ensure your organisation’s financial stability.
Ironically, I think some of this negative thinking about the ‘cost’ of ‘audience development’ may be linked to legal duties organisations now have around inclusion. Could it be that some parts of the sector now have policies on accessibility because they have to have them, not because they see the cultural, social and economic benefits of reaching a broader audience?
Creative Scotland’s published portfolio approach suggests that policies relating to access, audience development and equalities will be embedded and integrated within its structure. It will be interesting to see how that plays out practically when the new organisation launches in July. I hope it will support the sector in highlighting how truly creative organisations can become more sustainable by being more inclusive and developing new markets.
David Brownlee, Chief Executive, Audiences UK
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He was inspirational not least as his mantra was "Do not cut programming - do not cut marketing , programmatic or institutional"! "Create success in the arts". and "Who wants to contribute to or attend sick organizations?".He emphasised the need to find and develop new audiences and he was also very interesting on philanthropy and how it is not just about the rich - a philanthropic deed can be small but do immense good.
It was enlightening to be in a room filled with arts/cultural leaders from all scales and type of cultural organisations and have one of the leading management figures in the arts expound the importance of positive rather than negative reaction to "crisis" and not to allow "creativity to be beaten out of us".
Oh if only we could get the funding to bring him over to do a UK wide tour!
Vanessa
Taking a look at organisation such as Amazon, Play, Tesco's , Dixons their key marketing tool is their use of offers and promotions to encourage customer loyalty and draw customers back to their site. Their sophisticated analysis of previous customer buying behaviour allows them to target particular offers to particular customers.
The problem is ticketing system are woefully inadequate in this area. Okay we can create a buy one get one free ticket but that's not the same as having a system that prompts offers according to the buying profile of the individual customer. I am surprised that the ticketing system suppliers have not capitalised on this opportunity, I can analyse my customer but can't prompt them at the point of sale!
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