British Council Symposium on Audience Development and Workshops– Summary
While each of the speakers shared the experiences in his/her own area, the following themes seem to
have emerged as the common approach to audience development:
Heart vs Task
While traditionally arts marketers have developed many tools and ways to increase viewership, one of
the speakers suggested that increase in audience numbers and ticket sales are only by-product of arts
activities as the core values for any arts organizations should be to enrich people’s experiences and to
feed those experiences back to the arts for its further development. It is how the arts can change our
life and the impact created instead of churning numbers that we should focus on. Based on this,
audience development can be argued as primarily programme and vision led and the philosophy of
enriching audience experiences should permeate the whole organization instead of just the marketing
department. Adopting that concept should also alleviate some of the on-going tension between the
marketing and the programming function in any arts organizations. It also reminds us that as arts
administrators who have long been led to think only of output instead of outcome for any success under
the existing assessment system we should now re-examine our hearts and focus our mind once again
back to why we value the arts in the first place.
Collaboration vs Independence
The benefits and need for arts organizations to collaborate with various strategic partners instead of
working independently has been advocated throughout the Symposium and the two workshops. Not
only will things be done far more efficiency, effectively and economically than what individual arts
organizations can achieve, the results would also generate a much greater impact on society and hence
audience development. Collaborative efforts can be applied to the planning level, through operational
to tactical levels of arts organizations, with areas ranging from collecting marketing intelligence,
programming and print distribution as experienced in other countries. Fierce competition in a small
marketplace as in the arts industry has been cited as one of the common reasons for non collaboration
but if audience development is about converting the non attending group it was argued that there
should be ample room for collaboration among the industry players. As arts administrators, we should
actively seek out opportunities for collaboration and as a central coordinating body is naturally required
in this situation the Association would be well placed to play such a role.
Arts Marketing vs Audience Development
The approach to marketing as evolving in different eras was highlighted, from initially product led,
through marketing led to now audience development led. In particular, the arts marketing function,
through the ways it has tried to build audience has in the course of it narrowed down its customer
segment and sadly also self perpetuated the situation, making the struggle for audience building as if it
is almost self fulfilling. Rather, it was argued that efforts should be re-directed towards the unexploited
market and active intervention should be made to solicit response and to buy them in. The catchphrase
“arts marketing is dead, long live audience development” used should serve as a strong reminder for us
to shift our attention to satisfy the needs of the “non converters” instead of always focusing on our
existing customers as the only target. In relation to this, the idea of test drive the “non converters” in
relation to West Kowloon Cultural District was discussed in details at the workshop together with the
need for market research across the whole population and a better use of free seats. No doubt there
exists a genuine need to fill up the venues in the WKCD and test drive the Hong Kong population would
become a meaningful exercise which the arts administrators can collaborate to achieve results.
Community Engagement, Arts in Education and Social Cause
The wide engagement of the public and in particular the school community can be widely seen in almost
all of the projects carried out in all the speakers’ respective areas. If arts organizations are publicly
funded and have a genuine heart for the arts, it is not difficult to understand that they all exist to serve a
social function and should see the responsibilities of them being community relevant. After all, if the
argument above that ultimately it is how the arts can change our lives and experiences that matters
holds, it is only obvious that we should reach out and invite a wider participation from the public to
enjoy the arts. It also places importance on the partnership with teachers for the sustainable
development of arts in schools. It is also interesting to note that the audience development function is
named as Learning and Participation in each of the speakers’ organizations, suggesting the importance
of individual’s engagement in the arts as it should be. While education and outreach activities are
already being carried out by a lot of the arts organizations, we might want to reflect upon our motives,
qualities of programmes and assess the impact made, both in the short term and in preparation for the
WKCD.
Prepared on 24.11.09