stormy weather or the first evidence of climate change?

Regular readers of Audience News over the last year will have noted that every figure on attendance and spend on the arts has reported at worst flat-lining and in many cases significant increases.  Pretty impressive in the worst recession in living memory.

But no we are hearing some bad news from London’s West End.  For the first quarter of 2011, attendance dropped by 10% and box office revenue by 6%.  These poor figures may be just a blip.  Let’s hope so. But wouldn’t it be wise to do more than just hope?

The biggest funders of arts in the UK are audiences.  This isn’t true in some other nations where the national and local government provide a far higher proportion of turnover.  Focusing on audiences is therefore not an optional extra, it is essential for the continued health of the sector.

Much of the priority of funders and politicians (particularly in England) is currently on developing individual giving.  No bad thing in itself, but compared to earned income from ticket sales, philanthropy will always be a drop in the ocean.  And of course you’re most likely to raise money from happy, engaged audience members, so a holistic approach to engaging with your audiences is critical anyway.

Whilst there’s nothing we can do about a stormy quarter in the West End, we can make plans to guard against climate change in overall audience engagement in the UK.  It’s good to see Creative Scotland have clearly prioritised audience development in their new strategy and planned budget.  We look forward to hearing what the details of this will actually mean on the ground.

Let’s hope these figures are a blip, but we need to consider our contingency arrangements at the same time.  The UK urgently needs practical plans to sustain and grow audiences in the potentially very challenging years ahead, along with a decent level of resources and strong leadership to make it happen.  Without them we run the very real risk of standing idly by as the sector becomes less sustainable and less relevant to an increasingly large proportion of the population.

David Brownlee, Chief Executive, Audiences UK