What does art mean to people's lives? This year, we are going places to meet 100 audience members in all 11 council areas of Northern Ireland to find out. Our eleventh stop was at Seamus Heaney Homeplace in the Mid Ulster district council area.

What does art mean to people's lives? This year, we are going places to meet 100 audience members in all 11 council areas of Northern Ireland to find out. Our tenth stop was at Carrickfergus Library in the Mid and East Antrim district council area.

What does art mean to people's lives? This year, we are going places to meet 100 audience members in all 11 council areas of Northern Ireland to find out. Our ninth stop was at the Fermanagh House in Fermanagh.

What does art mean to people's lives? This year, we are going places to meet 100 audience members in all 11 council areas of Northern Ireland to find out. Our eighth stop was at Coleraine Town Hall in the Causeway Coast and Glens Borough council area.

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

New Era, New Audience: How can we make the arts appeal to the wider public during the pandemic and beyond? is our first guest blog of 2021, written by playwright Rosemary Jenkinson.

In July 2022, we began work on a fascinating project: Northern Ireland in 100 Stories. For the past year, we met with a total of 120 people from across all 11 council areas in Northern Ireland to find out what arts and culture means to their lives. As we near the end of the project, we wanted to gather in one place all the resources that came from it.

Some audience development controversy from the Theatre 2016 conference.

How you can use images to connect with your audiences.

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?

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.

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.

An interview with Sarah Hughes, on how business partnership can be as an audience development tool.

Read theatre director and writer Jess Williams' blog, the latest entry of our Dreams Guest Blog series.

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.

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.

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?

Two months since introducing our IMPACT survey, Research Analyst Laura has taken a first look at the data for early insights from the responses. Her initial review offers a pulse check – what does the data reveal about the impact of arts, cultural and heritage events and activities so far?

The Duncairn is our Audience Delight Award winner for Best Community Vibes. Read our case study to find out what is it about them that makes their audiences click.

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

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.

Struggling to get responses to your online survey? Here's how we worked with EastSide Arts to improve their response rate by over 500%, along with our top ten tips for improving your own online surveys.

Our latest Dreams guest blog is by Damien Coyle, Chief Executive of University of Atypical. He reflects on the past 12 months, what we can learn and what we must remember.

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?

We found that demonstrating the value of arts and culture, and the impact it can have on people and their communities is not an easy task. EastSide Arts' project 'The Gert and Friends' is a great example of how it can be done through co-creation.