Changing Landscapes
Audiences Yorkshire recognises that in today’s globalised and digitised world the relationship between culture, creativity and audience engagement is becoming ever more complex. You’ve told us at our Industry Briefings and via our Client Survey how your needs are starting to change too. Therefore, we want to be able to respond more effectively to your requirements and, in doing so, transform both our way of working with you and your way of engaging with audiences. To this end, and with support from Arts Council England’s Thrive! Programme, we have embarked on an exciting period of development. We now want to share our plans with you by doing some straight talking about what the future of audience engagement looks like and what this means collectively for the cultural community. Our future is dependent on the active part that you play in it just as much as your future relies upon your audiences engaging and participating in your events and cultural programmes. Audiences Yorkshire believes that by working together more openly and intelligently with you we can grow and nurture audiences for the future and build a sustainable cultural infrastructure for the region. In order to do this, we’d like to:
IMAGE CREDIT: Lawrence Batley Theatre, 2007 © Nina Stromsoy
Get to know you better and work more closely with you
Support you with intelligent audience insight in developing your market potential for audience development
Provide you with tools you need for connecting to and engaging with your cultural markets.
www.audiencesyorkshire.org.uk
The Power of Networks
How can Audiences Yorkshire support you and other arts professionals in sharing information and learning together in order to enhance and develop skills and knowledge across the sector? As a Membership organisation we recognise the need to deepen our relationship with you and in turn help you build connections with each other. You have told us that our service is ‘invaluable in providing a network of fellow members who all have a common interest and goal’. We want to take that relationship further by offering a more personalised service that responds to your individual needs. We want to advocate for your organisation and the work you are delivering amongst other networks. We want to introduce you to new partners and ideas; and offer you the opportunity to share your experiences and challenges with each other and the wider arts and cultural community. We will provide you with a range of solutions to meet your continuing professional development needs and help your organisation in achieving its mission.
IMAGE CREDIT: Audiences Yorkshire Annual Conference, 2007 © Gemma Leak
www.audiencesyorkshire.org.uk
Audience Insight
What do you know about your audiences? How does your business compare with others like you? How can you nurture stronger relationships with your audiences? Developing a sustainable audience-focused organisation relies on clear audience insight and the ability to make the most of it within your organisation. To support your organisation in its ability to be more effectively audience focused, we propose to improve our Audience Insight service. We will combine our research and consultancy skills to provide an integrated service. This will apply insight into your existing and potential audiences and any wider market trends to inform your strategic direction. Through the development of benchmarking studies and research partnerships we will ensure that your organisation can not only measure individual success but compare performance with your peers and identify new opportunities for development and collaboration. By understanding your audiences better and incorporating that knowledge into the heart of your organisation, you can turn audience insight into business intelligence and increase your potential for success.
IMAGE CREDIT: Leeds Art Gallery (2007) Š Nina Stromsoy
www.audiencesyorkshire.org.uk
Communications Solutions
How do your audiences access your organisation’s information and its cultural programmes? Are you still using 20th century tools to communicate with 21st century audiences? Technology now plays an important part in getting information to customers - every organisation has a website and most of your audiences will have broadband internet access, but the real edge comes from harnessing those technologies in the most cost effective, efficient and innovative ways. That is why we are in the process of developing a fresh suite of Communications Solutions to support you in targeting specific audience groups. Audiences Yorkshire’s Communications Solutions will deliver new ways to trial emerging technology and pilot new methods of interacting with audiences that will benefit your organisation. In addition, we’ve created new strategic partnerships with the BBC, Yorkshire Tourism Network and Local Authorities and will build on these to strengthen the channels through which you can reach your current and potential cultural consumers. We will keep one step ahead by applying current and future technologies ensuring that your audiences are the best informed about what’s on offer culturally in the region.
www.audiencesyorkshire.org.uk
Benefits to you and your organisation
These exciting advancements in Audiences Yorkshire’s offer will result in a more strategic agency restructured to respond to your audience development needs. Our vision is to help you with:
Increased audience engagement
Improved business support
Tailored audience development support
Greater engagement with Audiences Yorkshire
Improved sector advocacy and support
Better understanding of the support available to you and your colleagues.
To keep up to date with developments please visit www.audiencesyorkshire.org.uk or call us on 0113 320 0160.
IMAGE CREDIT: Audiences Yorkshire Industry Briefing, 2008 Š Fotofillia
www.audiencesyorkshire.org.uk
Building partnerships Case Study Scarborough Museums Trust
“Scarborough Museums Trust has been five years in the making and, looking back, the support offered by Audiences Yorkshire has been invaluable. Scarborough Museums and Gallery Service was a local authority managed museums and gallery service. The move to Trust status created the ability to effectively fundraise and the redevelopment of the museum provided impetus for the future. The first step was to examine existing audiences. Audiences Yorkshire undertook, on our behalf, an extensive programme of both qualitative and quantitative research. The results were fascinating and culminated in the Audiences Yorkshire team carrying through qualitative research which gave us a clear forward path. The audience development plan was wholly informed by this work and included a full marketing training programme for the Museums and Gallery staff. The quality of the training was excellent – good enough to hold together a group with varying levels of knowledge. Amongst all sorts of other practical support, Audiences Yorkshire delivered two key strands without which we could not have delivered our Audience Development Programme – an understanding of our audiences and how we could grow them and an understanding and acceptance of the tools to do that. Our relationship with Audiences Yorkshire became a partnership which still supports our ongoing audience development.”
Shirlie Stone Head of Business Development Scarborough Museums Trust
IMAGE CREDIT: Dinosaurs playing outside the Rotunda Museum being inspected by Alfie Milnes, Scarborough’s official Dinosaur Inspector, June 2006 © Tony Bartholomew
www.audiencesyorkshire.org.uk
Developing two-way traffic Case Study York Theatre Royal
“There has been a strong partnership between York Theatre Royal and Audiences Yorkshire for several years but over the last few years we have really taken our relationship to a much more strategic and crucial level for our organisation. We have been able to access the tactical support services of Audiences Yorkshire but have also been able to access more strategic audience development projects such as Stage Exchange, Not for the Likes of You (NFTLOY), The Big Picture and the ADUK Benchmarking scheme. There have been very tangible benefits from working with Audiences Yorkshire – our biggest ever audience last year; the regular support and training events our Marketing Team receive (helping us win the TMA Achievement in Marketing Award this year); our Customer Facing staff team being part of the NFTLOY training which ultimately contributed to us achieving the Investors In People standard. On a personal level the Leadership training, regular CEO briefings meetings and the chance to ‘pick up the phone’ and talk about your issues, knowing that there is an Audience Development expert at the other end of the phone, is a valuable service. Knowing I can get clear, frank and concise answers – without the feeling that I am being sold another product or service! Audiences Yorkshire have helped me (and therefore York Theatre Royal) in a variety of areas and I think the relationship is strong because there is a bit of ‘two-way traffic’ as I have also been able to support Audiences Yorkshire with project development, ideas and networks.”
Dan Bates
Chief Executive York Theatre Royal
IMAGE CREDIT: The Railway Children, 2008, photo by Karl Andre Photography © NRM and YTR
www.audiencesyorkshire.org.uk