The Audience Agency Audience Finder/ Outdoor Arts Adrienne Pye Regional Director, South East 24 th May 2014

Exploring and evaluating the outdoor arts experience

Outdoor Arts: what is it? Festivals Community events Melas and carnivals Circus, theatre, dance, music, digital … Pop up street events / paid for ticketed Commissioned, touring, locally based Venues/event managers, companies Public, private, not-for-profit, commercial

What typifies outdoor arts? Thought to attract a more diverse public than ‘mainstream arts’ Frequently connects with big civic events and festivals – something for ‘the people’ Claims made for economic impact, place making, cultural tourism Strong traditions and influences: street theatre, circus, carnival, religious celebrations

How does Audience Finder work? Quantitative research Common sets of questions Comparable robust methodologies Aggregation of data (enabling bigger pictures, comparisons, trends analysis) Work together in clusters – geographical or sector Reporting Understanding and working on results – working with the sector to refine and develop research

Audience Finder Outdoor Arts Year 1

Research questions How far does OA reach audiences other arts do not? What are the implications for audience development? What improvements would help to increase engagement and public support? What is the economic impact of OA? What are the implications of paid-for models? What are the intrinsic and instrumental benefits? To what degree is the quality of the artistic experience critical to these outcomes?

Methodologies Template questionnaire – choice from set of core, recommended and bespoke questions Deliver face-to-face after event or as e-survey Handbook of recommended practices eg. around counting people Creative ways that fit the event Further toolkits e.g. economic impact Use of postcodes to provide geo-demographic profiling (eg. Mosaic and Arts Audiences Insight)

Outdoor arts – research is a challenge Getting enough responses to make research robust Length of questionnaire Interrupting people on their day out Interfering with the performance Going beyond the basics Staff resources and skills Particular problems for performers / companies around collection of data Event organisers / festival not able or willing to share research results

Nevertheless … 25 organisations / companies / festivals participated in some way during individual questionnaire responses Probably the biggest national data collection in outdoor arts so far The aggregated data began to answer some of the research questions Feedback from the sector has provided useful input into changes for 2014 repeat research

Research methodologies – your views What research have you done? What methodological challenges did you face? In what ways did you overcome them?

What have we learnt so far?

Drive-time arts centres

Drive-time outdoor arts

Audiences are local The Audience Focus: Adding Value Geo-demographic profiling can also provide useful guidance

Mosaic Profiling – Outdoor Arts

Reasons for attendance The motivations for attendance were not always asked in surveys, but when asked, showed a difference from other sectors ‘to be intellectually stimulated’ and ‘to be inspired’ score lower Social benefits are scored higher There are larger groups and being with family is important This does not mean that the cultural experience is unimportant as such, it is more to do with the way in which they interpret the experience

Top 5 Motivations

Three words to describe the experience

Information and explanation Audiences in these groups often want more rather than less explanation What is obvious to the organisers and even to regular attenders is frustratingly unclear for some audiences This means information both in the sense of practical details (where things are and what’s on) and in terms of explanation of what they are experiencing

The Audience Focus: Adding Value Signage, with children it is difficult to read the brochure. Needs to be more obvious, visual around sites! Prior warning, so can plan attendance (missed a lot that I would have wanted to see) Aside from the lack of info at the event, we all had an amazing day. The atmosphere was really special, great to be able to spend time with good friends in such a lovely environment. I also loved the fact that there was lots to do for young children.

What’s still missing Better understanding of motivations to attend Links to/ implications for economic and social impact, place making and cultural tourism The role of free v. paid-for models Better understanding of how people engage and interact with events Year Two Short postcard style self-completion surveys Web analytics testing range of communications Smaller sub-set of organisations to trial economic and social impact studies using EI toolkit

Implications from 2013 research Localness: good at attracting the local community and brokering local relationships Engendering sense of place-making and civic pride? Audience development based on understanding that many attenders are not regular arts audiences - looking for social benefits and day out Quality of experience is important, not just of performance itself but total surround Audiences want more information and mediation to make sense of their experience

Report from 2013 Report of 2013 findings available at: oor-arts/ oor-arts/ Other resources and articles also available on Audience Finder website including Audiences on Tour and Audience Development toolkits