Our Foundations report shows what the ticketed landscape was like in Northern Ireland in 2019-2020. It uncovers insights into audiences for venues and festivals across Northern Ireland and identifies benchmark figures for our region.

Our Foundations report shows what the ticketed landscape was like in Northern Ireland in 2020-2021. It uncovers insights into audiences for venues and festivals across Northern Ireland and identifies benchmark figures for our region.

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.

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

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 Northern Ireland, as well as differences by Belfast venues and regional venues.

This comprehensive report from UK Theatre analyses sales data across a wide range of genres and venue types.

Insights from the ticketing data of up to 343 cultural organisations across the UK, Ireland, USA, and Canada.

Uncover the insight in your box office data.

Strategy, reporting, and campaign delivery.

Surveys, postcode mapping, focus groups, and visitor profiling.

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.

Our strategic insights director Chris invites NI festivals and venues with box office systems to take part in a returning favourite, our Foundations bench-marking project.

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.

Our CEO Fiona attended the Family Arts Conference and learnt a lot about ticket prices. Read her blog to find out her key takeaways.

In this podcast we hear from the museum guides and curators on what the process was actually like and how glad they are they done it!

A run-down of all the ways to find out about your current and potential audiences. These range from simple and no-cost solutions, to more sophisticated box office systems.

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.

We worked with Shannon Yee to find an audience for her immersive theatre installation. An example of how communication with box office and front of house staff is vital for marketing alternative theatre.

Are you a theatre company or producer showing your work in a receiving venue? The toolkit will help you prep all the info you and your venue need to market your show effectively.

Some audience development controversy from the Theatre 2016 conference.

How Hull Truck Theatre improved the accessibility of their website and online booking process.

Author: Danielle McLoughlin

Use this template to create a powerful one-page persona that helps you focus on your target audiences.

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.

How can you know more about your audiences? We're listing free tools that you already have access to and tips on how to use them.

In this blog post, our CEO Fiona explains her take on the differences, and how audience development is the only way to meaningful change.

How popular is online booking with Northern Irish arts ticket buyers - and how does it differ between urban and rural contexts?

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.

With the new StopCOVID NI app up and running, Sarah looks at the implications of GDPR in contact tracing and what it means for your organisation.

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

Our strategic insights director Chris Palmer blogs on his return to thrive after three years away.

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.

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

If you're a producer that brings work to receiving venues, you may think it's difficult to get a hold of your audience data for those shows. This blog clears up who has a right to the data. Plus, you'll get tips on how to work with venues to share this data, and increase audiences for everyone.

What is the ultimate stage of loyalty? How can you bring your audiences to see you as their BFF so they will support you at all times? Read our blog to find out.

A message from the thrive team to the Arts, Culture and Heritage sectors about COVID-19.

The focus is often on new audiences coming through our doors, but what does it take to get them to visit your organisation time and time again? Read our blog to find out.

Our Client Relationships Director Laura Cusick is back from maternity leave. Read her blog to find out more about how she plans to lead our team to further support you and the rest of the sector.

Covid had an impact on how cultural organisations are collecting and using audience data. With our last thrive survey, we were able to find out what changed and what it means for audience data in NI going forward.

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.

Why you might already be doing research without knowing it... and how to choose the right research method to find out what you need to know.

Our top tips for designing and running a survey. Find out how to create useful survey questions and get the response rates you need.

Here are the answers to some of the most common questions we've been getting from the cultural sector on GDPR.

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.

When audiences visit your organisation for the first time, what can you do to build a lasting relationship with them? Read our blog to find out.

Open House Festival is in the unusual position of having moved location from Belfast city centre to the seaside town of Bangor. We explore why they made the move, and how it has affected their audiences.

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.

Change in the cultural sector is often associated with fighting funding cuts - but organisational change is essential to survive and thrive in our fast-paced environment. Our CEO Margaret Henry shares her thoughts and experience on the challenges and benefits of change.

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.

Grassroots venues play a vital role in maintaining the longevity of the music sector. In this blog, Eve explores the challenges facing local grassroots music venues and what could be done to support their long term success.

Community Asset Transfer (CAT) has been successfully utilised across the UK, yet Northern Ireland has seen only one major success story so far – the Open House Festival's ownership of the Court House, Bangor. Its triumph prompts an important question – Why aren't more Northern Irish communities trying out asset transfers to revive cherished local buildings?