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.

We recently designed and delivered research for Belfast Stories in which we took a creative approach to craft our questions.

Find out how NI audiences engage with culture online.

Ofcom have released their report into what the people of Northern Ireland are watching and listening - and how and where they are doing it. Here's our quick summary of the report - and the implications for the cultural sector.

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 first stop was at the Duncairn in Belfast.

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 second stop was at the Millennium Forum in Derry~Londonderry.

Discover the insights from the Missing Audiences for Northern Ireland - Wave 2 survey.

Find out who are the NI audiences willing to pay for culture online.

Find out how lockdown has impacted audiences in NI

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 eleventh stop was at Seamus Heaney Homeplace in the Mid Ulster district council area.

Discover the insights from the Missing Audiences for Northern Ireland - Wave 1 survey.

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 fourth stop was at High Rise in Lisburn, Lisburn and Castlereagh City.

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 fifth stop was at Antrim Castle Gardens in Antrim, Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough.

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.

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 third stop was at Portico of Ards in Portaferry, Ards and North Down Borough.

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 eighth stop was at Coleraine Town Hall in the Causeway Coast and Glens Borough 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 seventh stop was at Canal Court Hotel in Newry, Mourne and Down.

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 sixth stop was at Millennium Court in Portadown, Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough.

In this snapshot, find out how NI audiences' engagement with culture online has changed, what they enjoy about it and what they don't.

This report from Culture24 explores after-hours events in museums and their role in the night-time economy.

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

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.

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

Older people are a growing population - both in Northern Ireland and globally. Here's how to make your cultural offering and marketing appeal to this group.

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

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

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.

This report from NISRA gives the overall picture on who is living in Northern Ireland, and covers population growth, travel and transport, technology use and more.

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.

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.

In this snapshot, find out what arts and culture experiences represent for NI audiences, why they attend and what it gives them that other things don't.

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

Find out what NI audiences think of emails and newsletters, and what they want to hear in your communication to them.

In this audience snapshot, find out how NI audiences feel about returning to in-person events.

This 2016 report profiles the visitors to six Northern Irish museums.

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

We ran our first focus group with our Audience Panel and they had a lot to say about how they find out about upcoming arts and culture events.

In this audience snapshot, learn about NI audiences' summer plans.

In this audience snapshot, find out what NI audiences first do when going to a venue, their pet peeves and how venues make them feel.

How do NI audiences perceive arts and culture? Find out in our latest audience snapshot.

Find out what art form NI audiences connect with the most and what prevents them from engaging with some art forms.

Get to know Jan, our accessibility persona created from the data collected during our Audience Panel.

Get to know Frank and Nancy, our Older Frequent Attender persona created from the data collected during our Audience Panel.

Cultural organisations in England get their overview of cultural audiences from the Taking Part Survey.

Full report of findings from Act 2 of the 'After the Interval' survey in NI and ROI

Get to know Jill, our Young Family persona created from the data collected during our Audience Panel.

Get to know Darren, our Young Infrequent Attender persona created from the data collected during our Audience Panel.

Report of findings from Act 1 of the 'After the Interval' survey in NI and ROI

For the first time, we are sharing artform reports from our IMPACT Survey, using responses gathered from 29 organisations between September 2023 and July 2024. This report details the motivations, behaviours, and demographics of Theatre audiences.

For the first time, we are sharing artform reports from our IMPACT Survey, using responses gathered from 29 organisations between September 2023 and July 2024. This report details the motivations, behaviours, and demographics of Music audiences.

For the first time, we are sharing artform reports from our IMPACT Survey, using responses gathered from 29 organisations between September 2023 and July 2024. This report details the motivations, behaviours, and demographics of Visual Arts audiences.

For the first time, we are sharing artform reports from our IMPACT Survey, using responses gathered from 29 organisations between September 2023 and July 2024. This report details the motivations, behaviours, and demographics of Comedy audiences.

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.

Discover the insights from our Culture Beyond Covid audience research for ticketed and non-ticketed organisations.

Research into the media preferences and habits of over 25,000 US performing arts customers.

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

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 what NI visual arts audiences think about coming back, what they've been doing over lockdown and what they'll feel comfortable doing in the future.

Find out the results from our fourth and final survey for Culture Beyond Covid for Heritage: the Heritage Panel

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

Over the past couple of years, we have been working on an exciting venture known as the North West project. This initiative revolves around the collection of data concerning arts, culture, and heritage audiences in Derry and Donegal. Now, we've decided to put together all the stuff we've learned from it in one place.

Conversations and views from the public and the arts sector on what Arts Council England should focus on.

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

The iBeholder pilot was developed to help us discover new ways to gather audience data for non-ticketed visual arts organisations and boost the audience experience. This report details everything that happened throughout the project and the insights we uncovered during the pilot.

Spark ideas and reach solutions.

Have the confidence to gather the data you need.

Uncover the insight in your box office data.

Strategy, reporting, and campaign delivery.

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

Join us at The Duncairn to chat all things loyalty and engagement. How do you develop a committed relationship with your audience?

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.

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

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

Maurane Ramon shares her thoughts as an arts marketer new to Northern Ireland’s geographical, cultural, and political landscapes.

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

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.

The significance of arts and culture is frequently downplayed, yet it profoundly shapes people's lives. The Northern Ireland in 100 Stories project has gathered first hand accounts from people across the region demonstrating the impact arts and culture have on local residents. In this blog post, Laura examines the key themes from the project, highlighting how integral arts and culture are to are to local communities.

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.

In this guest blog, Sarah McAvera from Golden Thread Gallery, shares her experience of attending "free" cultural events with her family, which often come with hidden prices. She explores whether this outcome is inevitable or if organisations can implement changes to provide more budget-friendly and accessible family programming.

Our client relationships director Fiona Bell shares some thoughts on the arts sector after her travels across the length and breadth of Northern Ireland this year.

In 2018, six museums across Northern Ireland hosted late-night events to attract new audiences and change perceptions about museums.

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

A roadmap for digital tailored to Northern Ireland’s arts and culture organisations’ needs

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.

'The Touring Marketing Map’ is a mind map guide created by the AMA to help motivate organisations with their marketing campaigns.

Patrick O'Reilly from Tinderbox asks the right questions and suggests solutions for a thriving cultural sector in Northern Ireland.

The Arts Collaboration Network's statement following the NI Executive announcement made on future restrictions which will apply in Northern Ireland from 11th December.

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.

The Kids in Museums Manifesto, created with input from children, young people, and families, offers simple guidelines for making museums and heritage sites more welcoming and enjoyable for all.

This toolkit from Indigo and BOP Consulting will guide you through choosing a new ticketing or CRM system for your venue or organisation.

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

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

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.

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.

We've talked audience development with hundreds of organisations across Northern Ireland (and further afield!). So here are some of the most frequently asked questions we hear about understanding and growing cultural audiences.

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?

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?

The Around the Town Festival in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland, highlights the impact of community-driven efforts on local culture. Led by Positive Carrickfergus, the festival aimed to showcase the town’s potential and boost its arts scene. For this case study, our Client Programme Coordinator Sarah spoke with Creative Producer Lynn McKenzie to find out how she and the team turned community aspirations into a successful festival through collaboration, planning, and responsive organising.

Thanks to funding from ACNI, we now have a suite of 8 iPads available for venues and festivals who want to run surveys on-site.

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 toolkit to strengthen your relationship with audiences post-pandemic

Results updated weekly from the Covid-19 'After the Interval' Act 1 National Audience Survey.

Results updated weekly from the Covid-19 'After the Interval' Act 2 Audience Survey.

Our family friendly toolkit will help you to welcome families and anticipate their needs.

Read the Arts Collaboration Network's latest statement on 27th January 2021

Time to nominate your favourite NI organisation and celebrate how they have found new ways to connect with their audiences in spite of the year's challenges.

This Spring, Let’s go on an Art-venture and get back to our city centres!

The Age Friendly Guidelines from Family Arts Campaign provide practical steps to welcome older 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.

Read our second guest blog from the Changed Future series, written by Beth Frazer.

With this toolkit, review your loyalty game and identify areas to work on next.

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

Practical advice and case studies on cultural democracy from 64 Million Artists.

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.

A comprehensive toolkit and checklist to help you welcome LGBTQ+ audiences to your venue, festival, or event. Produced in collaboration with Outburst Arts.

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

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.

Paul Connolly, lead singer of the Wood Burning Savages writes our third dream blog in which he reimagines NI cities and town centres where empty buildings are filled with arts and culture for the common good.

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?

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.

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.

When you're starting any kind of research - the first thing to do is to check what's already out there. Here are our top free online sources of audience information.

Our Client Programme Coordinator Sarah introduces our latest resource: Another reopening guideline, with an audience-focused twist.

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?

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.

We're looking for people working in the arts, culture and heritage to share with us their dreams and visions for the NI sector.

In our latest guest blog, Niamh Kelly, Youth Ambassador at Reimagine, Remake, Replay writes about co-curation with audiences, and in this instance, with young people. Could it change museums' relationships with their audiences for the better?

Our Client Programme Coordinator Sarah updates us on the All Ireland Performing Arts Conference.

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?

Why green issues matter to audiences and how the cultural sector is well-placed to make a positive impact on the environment.

Read our latest guest blog from the Changed Future series, written by Holly Foskett.

VR is an exciting new opportunity for arts, culture, and heritage. But is there really an audience for it, and can it be used as an audience development tool? Fiona Bell reports from the Culture Geek conference.

Fat Chance is the second blog from our Dreams Guest Blog series. Caitlin Magnall-Kearns tackles the issue of diversity on our stages, specifically how Plus-Size Bodies are represented and what can be done for change.

Margaret Henry reports back from the Creative Industries Federation Brexit Conference and asks if we're missing some Northern Irish voices in the debate.

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

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

For our new themes for 2021/2022, we take a closer look at a typical audience journey, from the first time they hear about you to when they become loyal customers, and all the steps in between. Read our introduction and first step of the audience journey.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

When it comes to collecting audience data, free, non-ticketed spaces always ask us the same question: how can we learn more about the people who come through our doors without a ticketing system?

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.

Welcome to this year's third theme: What is your real purpose? What is the change you want to see?

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.

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.

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

Our CEO Margaret attended the Westminster Media Forum event recently, and came away with a lot of ideas and questions for digital transformation in the NI arts, culture, and heritage sector.

We've asked Zoe Seaton at Big Telly Theatre Company what it's like to adapt live theatre online, how to price digital performances and tips for NI organisations.

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.

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.

Read our third guest blog from the Changed Future series, written by Charmain Jones.

In this guest blog, Paul Kane from Belfast Over the Hill Music Collective shares his views on the way art and artists are perceived in our society and what he wants to change.

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.