Last month, we sat down with representatives from organisations across Belfast to discuss their thoughts on the impact of various art forms on audiences. Find out how the meeting went in our latest blog written by our Sector Programme Coordinator Eve Murtagh.

How and when does an interest in an artform translate into attending and participating in it? In June, our resident BOSS Eve attended the 'Interest Into Action' TEA Break session hosted by the Audience Agency. This session led Eve to doing some investigating into this concept of her own with some very interesting results.

If you're interested in arts attendances in the Republic of Ireland this report is for you.

Hand-picked reports on cultural audiences and attendance.

A national survey from Arts Council of Ireland looking at attendance and participation in the arts in ROI.

A look at what Northern Ireland's ticketing data tells us about audience attendance trends across the year.

Interested in targeting young people? Or increasing loyalty in your current audience of young people? Then read on.

Earlier this month, we were invited to take part in the Festivals Forum, where we presented some of our findings on festival audience attendance over the last 4 years. The meeting provided us with great insight into trends from across NI festivals. Eve discusses in this report.

Who is attending outdoor events in Belfast and how you can increase your event attendees.

Insights into arts and craft audiences in Belfast, and ideas for increasing visitors to your gallery.

The raw data from our IMPACT Survey contains survey responses from 2,921 participants across 35 organisations in Northern Ireland collected from September 2023 to March 2024

Our IMPACT report helps us learn more about who audiences are, how they behave, why they attend and how they feel after attending a variety of artforms.

Find out the results from our first Culture Beyond Covid for Heritage: The Heritage Panel

This in-depth qualitative study looks at arts audiences from 20 organisations across the UK, uncovering why people attend shows, events, and galleries - and what holds them back from engaging more.

Our Foundations report shows what the ticketed landscape was like in Northern Ireland in 2019-2023. It uncovers insights into audiences for venues and festivals across Northern Ireland and identifies benchmark figures for our region.

The Continuous Household Survey is an annual public survey done by the Northern Irish Government. Here's how to access the results, and why you should read it.

What ticketing data can tell us about the effects of funding cuts on the arts in Northern Ireland.

Are cultural organisations too focused on new audiences - at the expense of encouraging and rewarding loyal visitors? Here's how and why arts organisations should be promoting audience loyalty.

Our insights director Chris looks at the ticketing trends and what they say about where people get their cultural fix in NI. Do ticket-buyers in Belfast stick to city venues - and vice versa?

What our latest ticketing research says about customer loyalty in theatres and arts venues across Northern Ireland.

Colleen Dilenschneider argues that free admission matters less than we may think - and backs it up with ticketing and attendance data from the US.

Author: Colleen Dilenschneider 

In this short toolkit, we are looking at different types of surveys and finding the one that works best for you.

This spider chart will help you to visualise how you’re doing at loyalty and to focus your effort on the things you need to improve for strengthening your relationship with your audiences.

Do you want to know more about your audiences and contribute to sector-wide research? Find out about our newest project and how to get involved.

Nicholas Penny, former director of the National Gallery in London, questions the attention paid to visitor numbers in determining the success of cultural institutions.

We ran Hitchhiker's Guide to the Arts in 2014 to see if planned group visits could increase engagement from those who don't normally attend cultural events.

We are now taking registrations for wave 2 of Missing Audiences in Northern Ireland, which will open on 31st January 2022.

Want to know why some of your most loyal audiences haven't yet come back to your organisation? There's a way to find out. Take part in Missing Audiences.

Three proven ways to get performing arts audiences to re-attend.

We ran a series of workshops to support arts and culture venues to think creatively about how to improve their Access for Disabled People. This is what we learned.

Have questions on the IMPACT Survey? Read on for more information.

This toolkit will help you to make small and easy changes to your venue and online presence to welcome disabled audiences.

Audience development is about building relationships and this is what we will be focusing on to support the sector over the next 12 months.

Carrickfergus Museum transformed an empty space within their building into an area specifically designed for a new audience. We're looking at how they succeeded and how they integrated it into their regular programming.

Outburst Queer Arts Festival introduced their own ticketing strategy 'More if/Less if' to make their programme more accessible. They're one of our 2019/2020 Audience Delight Winner.

We want to grow the amount of research into cultural engagement in Northern Ireland. Read our blog to find out more about our plans for this year and how you can take part.

The Earagail Arts Festival asked their audience and wider public about their motivations and barriers to attend the festival. They uncovered data that helped them to evaluate their impact and refine their purpose.

We have partnered with the Insights Alliance (Indigo Ltd, Baker Richards and One Further) to deliver the Missing Audiences survey in Northern Ireland.

Thrive's visitor profiling project to learn more about the visitors to six Northern Ireland museums.

In early July, Sarah and Maurane hopped over to sunny Brighton for the Arts Marketing Association
conference. Maurane was invited over as a speaker and Sarah decided to tag along and mingle with over 750 representatives from the UK’s cultural sector. The conference, themed "Be Bold, Be Brave," featured thirty-five talks over two days. Here are some key lessons in bravery that Sarah learned.

Our latest Foundations report, indicates a fresh wave of individuals engaging with arts and culture in Northern Ireland following the pandemic. We wanted to take a closer look at both emerging and diminishing audiences more closely.

As we move towards spring, it's a fitting time to take a moment and consider December, a pivotal time of year for the arts. With recent reports suggesting a downturn in sales for pantomimes and Christmas shows throughout the UK, it's worth examining whether this trend extends to Northern Ireland as well.

Want to know more about the details of the IMPACT project? Read our FAQs

A recent visit to Dundee shows a city that is investing in people-focused culture and heritage. What are the lessons for Belfast's future cultural strategy?

Fiona Bell asks whether arts venues go out of their way to be truly welcoming to everyone - or are we in danger of simply talking the talk?

Working with the Barbican to gather insights into what young people want from their membership in future.

Audience development. It’s an objective that is close to our hearts here at Thrive. This summer, we decided to delve deeper into it, meeting with people from various parts of Northern Ireland’s arts and cultural sector (festivals, producers, galleries, and venues) The aim? To get an insight into the unique challenges each group faces around building and maintaining audience relationships.

How many tickets for arts and culture events in Northern Ireland are offered at no cost? Insights from our Foundations Report have shed light on this. This prompts us to examine why organisations opt for free events and ticket giveaways. Are there benefits to sharing your valuable, often pricey, work for free?

Every year, we mine box office data to uncover insights into audiences for venues and festivals across Northern Ireland. Data includes overall benchmark figures for NI, as well as differences by Belfast venues and regional venues.

Before we can see the effects of GDPR, here's a breakdown of how well Northern Irish venues are capturing contact details and permissions for their ticket buyers.

How National Theatre of Scotland is using digital creatively to improve access and grow Deaf audiences.

Our annual benchmarking report Foundations shows consistently each year that the vast majority of customers do not return the following year. And they don’t come more than once during the year. It sounds like we have a commitment problem. Áine explores how to use data to better understand audience engagement.

Clever use of social proof can help you use your current audience to encourage new visitors to your cultural venue or events.

How to move first-time attendees up the loyalty ladder? Find out how the California Symphony became audience-focused and created incentives based on their audiences' behaviour.

In this blog, our former Client Relationships Exec Catherine talks about all the things to consider for filling your space with experiences audiences will love.

Happy New Year! We're opening the year with a new theme: strengthening your relationship with your audiences and loyalty. It is as important as ever when our cultural spaces remain closed. Read our blog to find out more.

Libraries are routinely reaching audiences that other cultural organisations struggle to. What can we learn from libraries about attracting a more diverse and representative audience?

How to design a membership scheme that increases customer loyalty and improves your organisation's bottom line.

Last June, The Crescent Arts Centre decided to try something new for their Belfast Book Festival: a Pay What You Want scheme. Read our case study to find out how it went.

In this blog, our former Research Executive Victoria explores the different benefits of having a ticketing system.

Read our third guest blog from the Changed Future series, written by Paul Connolly.

Read our first guest blog from the Changed Future series, written by Lucretia Devlin.

The Foundations 2019-2023 report was made to study look at the ticketing landscape in Northern Ireland in recent years, including festivals. We learned a lot from it. So, we decided to talk to a few Northern Ireland festivals that weren't in the report. We wanted to find out what they thought about the trends for the next year.