Come join us at Millennium Forum for a Bottomless Brunchmarking session focused on creating inclusive arts and culture spaces for diverse audiences

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

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, find out how NI audiences feel about returning to in-person events.

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

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

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.

This research explored UK audiences' behaviours during lockdown, their wants and needs post-Covid and marketing opportunities for arts & culture organisations moving forward.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

In this report, we've used our IMPACT Survey to offer new insights into audience motivations, behaviours, and demographics, broken down by artform.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

What's the standard for digital marketing in the arts? Here are findings from a survey of 180 U.S. arts organisations by Capacity Interactive.

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

Uncover the insight in your box office data.

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

Our free events give you the practical skills to unlock your potential audiences.

Unsure where to start? Book a free one-to-one audience development session.

A webinar to share our findings for NI and ROI with the sector, 3 weeks into the 'After the Interval' survey.

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?

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.

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

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

Social media taking over your life? Simplify things and save time - plan your posts with our easy-to-use excel sheet.

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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?

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

This toolkit will help you to understand Facebook Insights better; to know what information it can give you and how to refine your content for your audiences based on this data.

Get the low-down on recording images of audiences under GDPR, and download our template to make your own event photography notice.

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

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.

Learnings from the Hull UK City of Culture conference around how we measure and talk about the benefits and impact of culture.

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

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.

YouGov and Experian have been collecting data on the cost-of-living crisis and its impact on consumers. We wrote a blog about the implications for arts and culture audiences.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

A guest blog by Kim Mitchell from MoMA New York. Kim talks about communications at the top end of the art world, and the challenges of working with a world-renowned brand.

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?

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

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.

A guest post from Robert Jones of brand consultancy firm Wolff Olins. Robert talks about how a clear purpose is becoming more and more essential for cultural organisations.

The fifth and last step of audience development is the big scary evaluation. Reviewing what you've done and assessing the impact you've made shouldn't be a chore. Read our blog to see our take on the most important step of audience development.

Good writing can be the difference between an amazing show, exhibition, or event enjoyed by many, or an amazing show in an empty venue. Here are our top tips.

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

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

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.

Your website is often where your audience member starts their visit. If it's not accessible - what message are you sending to potential disabled and d/Deaf audience members? Here are some practical steps to make your website more accessible.

Today is a new chapter for Audiences NI as we launch a new brand but also a new name – Welcome to thrive.

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.

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

Our CEO Fiona recently traveled to the North West to chat with a group of older people to understand more about their engagement with arts and culture. She wrote a blog to let us know what she learnt.

How you can use images to connect with your audiences.

Our CEO Fiona reflects on the latest trends in people's behaviours and attitudes post-Covid.

How using focus groups helped The Crescent understand how their audience sees them, and led to a new brand and website that's showcasing the best of what they offer.

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.

'Legitimate Interests' could be the saving grace for many arts and culture organisations who want to hold on to their marketing lists.

Sign-up forms, subscription confirmations, welcome emails... they're all opportunities to get the message out there about who you are and why a potential audience member should buy a ticket or plan a visit.

Talking to your audiences online and encouraging them to post comments and interact is a great way to draw attention to your offer, and increase audience loyalty. Here are the best ways to get started, and deal with any negative comments too.

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.

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?

Our former Client Relationships Exec Catherine talked to the person behind the hilarious (and informative) social media accounts of The Museum of English Rural Life. Read our case study to find out how they succeeded in diversifying their online audiences with a single tweet.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Using scenarios can help develop a rounder view of your audience, and give insights where personas just don't apply.

Some people who used to be regular audience members haven't yet returned to cultural organisations. There are ways to entice them back. Read our blog to find out.

As we're noticing the impact of the latest Apple update on social media advertising, we wrote a blog to explain what it's all about and the challenges it brings to arts and culture organisations.

GDPR has had a major impact on email marketing. There are new and more rigorous standards on who you can email to. Here's what that means for marketers.

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?

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.