Nice to meet you, I’m a Leo with Aquarius rising

OK, I made the bit about Aquarius rising up.  But thrive is indeed a Leo – arriving officially on the 5^th August 2004.  Christened Audiences NI, we changed our name during our turbulent teens when we were “finding ourselves” and establishing an identity.

21 today.

I know absolutely no one cares about how old other organisations are – myself included.  But such a big birthday calls for reflection, and some consideration of what might be next.

A few people have asked me recently “so, do thrive not do audience development anymore?”.  I presume this is because of how much we bang on about research (be remiss to not highlight our latest research on arts attendance – click here after you finish this)

Well, we do, of course.  But audience development has been around for a very long time as a theory.  And I would go so far as to suggest that not very much has changed in terms of audience development practice in those years.

And I think that is because we have been trying to “fix” the wrong problem.  We have been trying to develop new audiences without having evidence about who our audiences actually are.  We are told often that it is only a small group of fancy, old rich people that “do” arts so we must spend all our time chasing the young, or the working class or the students etc.  But if they are already coming, is that why it doesn’t feel very different?

Spoiler – I’m about to talk about research again.

The Arts Council published Arts and Culture in NI in 2004, the first dedicated survey of attendance at, participation in and attitudes towards arts and culture in Northern Ireland since the early 1990’s. It found that adults attending at least one arts or cultural event in the last year was 73%. It also showed strong support for public funding of the arts with 78% of people agreeing that ‘it is right that there should be public funding of arts and culture projects.’

Fast forward 20 years.  Department for Communities research into engagement with the arts shows that that figure has risen to 80% in 2023 -24.  Arts Council research into attitudes shows that in 2022-23, 79% agreed with the public funding of arts and culture.

So, we are doing good, yes?  We have grown the percentage of people who engage with the arts.  Sport, by the way is at 51%. Yes, you read that right.  And to achieve growth when the funding for arts has been decimated is even more remarkable.

But it doesn’t feel like we are working in a sector that is delivering a success story.  It feels hard.

And that is why thrive keep focusing on the research.  Because the research helps us challenge policy that is built on perception, prejudice and politics.

But, and here’s the win, it also helps organisations understand their audiences better.

So yes, we still do audience development – but we need to focus on the data for a while longer to make sure we can all thrive (see what I did there?)