|
GGA Work in Progress
Glasgow Sculpture Studios (GSS)
GSS are in the middle of a strategic business planning process with their Board and stakeholders focused on the proposed development of new facilities at the Briggait in close partnership with WASPS. GGA carried out focus groups for a range of third and fourth year students and lecturers at GSA with the aim of improving awareness, communication and developing closer working relationships to increase the future demand and uptake of facilities.
The Arches
Focus Groups with attenders and non-attenders used interesting new qualitative methodology, supported by the Arches team, to better understand the perceptions and awareness of the Arches as a venue yielding some fascinating insights.
Citizens Theatre
Following some marked developments in their brand positioning and print, the Citizens wanted to explore the impact on their existing attenders as well as non-attenders, through a series of focus groups. Two have taken place and the Citzens are currently recruiting more participants.
National Theatre of Scotland (NTS)
NTS contracted GGA to undertake some brand research in advance of their launch with a wide range of the non theatre going audience. Key to the research was to identify the current level of awareness of the NTS, perceptions of what it stands for and should be. Focus groups were carried out across the country in Peebles, Moffat, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen, Peterhead, Inverness and Fort William. The emerging key themes were 'tested' through further e-research circulated to over 3000 theatre and classical music attenders. Analysis is currently underway and reveals a remarkable degree of both passion and consistency amongst the participants and interesting insights into what being ‘national’ means. Do they support Vicki Featherstone’s comments?
‘The National Theatre ethos is not to be 'a jingoistic, patriotic stab at definingnation's identity through theatre' but a chance to throw open the doors of possibility.’ Guardian2 (p21, 1.11.05)
Watch this space…
King Street Visual Arts
GGA has begun work with the 9 visual arts organisations in advance of the new groundbreaking capital development for the visual arts in King Street from closure and decant through to relaunch. This will involve working closely with Glasgow City Council Culture and Leisure Services, Senior Arts Development Officer, Clare Simpson to implement a strategic audience development plan encouraging wider participation and awareness of the visual arts and links with Glasgow City Marketing Bureau.
An Lochran: Gaelic Arts Strategy for Glasgow
Working with GCC’s Gaelic Arts Development Officer Rona McDonald and An Lochran (promoting Arts and Culture in Glasgow), GGA is building an audience development strategy for Glasgow. We are reviewing current research as well as developing new research with key audience targets, working alongside national bodies for the promotion of gaelic arts. Glasgow will be instrumental in developing a cohesive approach to marketing and audience development with a Gaelic ‘brand.’ Nationally.
Playwright Studios, Scotland
GGa are working with PSS to identify a methodology to evaluate the success and impact of an exciting new pilot audience development project to accompany 'Evolve', their play development programme for aspiring playwrights. Across a 6 month period audience members get the opportunity to learn how to analyse writing, share opinions and develop text through facilitated discussions with the playwright. The aim is to develop curiosity, confidence and enjoyment by sharing a glimpse of the process of writing, encouraging greater attendance as a result. The partnership is with the Tron Theatre and other venues across Scotland. PSS will soon hear if their bid for audience development funds will be successful and, if so, GGA will develop a methodology to identify attitudes and behaviours throughout the process and support a sustained approach to audience development as a result of the process.
For more details about these and other GGA projects, log on to www.gga4arts.co.uk
Back to top
Training and Events
November has been a busy month with our Speed Networking and Intelligence Service, hosting both a workshop and seminar, as well as launching our new initiative for marketing, box office and front of house staff called 21st Century Service, supported by Glasgow City Marketing Bureau.
21st Century Service will encompass joint training initiatives amongst venues, a combined training needs analysis, joint standard setting, recognition schemes, regular email communications and networking with teams across the city.
Workshops and seminars that have been and gone…
Are You ‘Family Friendly?’
Did you miss Liz Moran, Chief Executive, MacRobert; Lara Bowen, General Manager, Wee Stories and Alice McGrath, Development Director, Imaginate?
Rated by delegates attending as ‘100% relevant’
‘Very relevant - wish I had more time to action it all’
Raising the Game
Creating the 21st Century Box Office
Did you miss your chance to meet Beth Aplin, Claire Capel, Jane Donald, Debbie Richards and Roger Tomlinson?
‘Interesting to get speakers with a breadth of knowledge and experience'
‘I gleamed info from them all. Good to see some forward planning and joined up thinking.’
'This was the most valuable seminar I have attended in a long time and have taken away many positive changes we can implement immediately to improve our service’
Worldly-Wise
Details of the fourth in the series of our audience segment workshops have just been released. Worldly-Wise looks at targeting the 50+ market and how to incorporate their unique demographic and lifestyle characteristics into your marketing and programming plans. With Scotland’s ageing population this is an audience that offers significant potential not only for attendance, but also for support through volunteering. Insights from Angus Simpson, Presenter, SAGA 105.2FM; Niki Smith, Service Development Manager, Sport and Recreation Department, Glasgow City Council and Sheena Glass, Director, Glasgow Old People’s Welfare Association.
Log on to www.growyouraudiences.com to book your place now before it’s too late.
Back to top
Seminars, Workshops and Day Events
Managing to Be... a Leader
8 February 2006 - Festival Theatre, Edinburgh
This day workshop with Peter Bellingham, Executive Director, Welsh National Opera, will explore leadership roles, styles of leadership and the needs of those you lead. It will focus on helping you to develop the knowledge, skills and confidence required to motivate and guide your team to success.
Museums and Galleries Marketing Day (Feb 06)
Do the Write Thing… Again (Feb/Mar 06)
Copywriting.
Fundraising for Marketers (Mar 06)
Log onto the AMA website for full event and booking details... the new and improved version of the AMA website with online networking - coming soon.
Back to top
Audience Development Strategy for Glasgow – the longer view
Market Intelligence about Glasgow
‘Each day in Glasgow there are over 56,000 seats to sell’
GGA's Charlotte Winter has completed city-wide desk research which for the first time provides a picture of the Glasgow market size and demand for the arts. It quantifies population size, scale and demographic profile, as well as the hot/cold spots of participation and attendance. Some startling insights emerge about the amount of capacity for the arts in Glasgow and a powerful argument for a more collaborative approach to audience development.
Barriers to non-attendance in Glasgow
Linked to the above, if we know about market size, what do we really know about the barriers to attendance in Glasgow? Overprovision, competition, lack of profile, interest, desire, poverty, lack of education, poor transport, high prices, apathy? GGA has been putting the final touches to a research methodology which will enable members to better understand their impact on the Glasgow audience and in turn assist them in providing for non-attenders. This will begin early January and be published in Late Spring 2006.
Attendance in Glasgow – The Audience Data Exchange
With data on market size and the reasons for non-attendance, the other vital project that is part of the audience development strategy is to find out who your audiences are, where they come from and what they enjoy now. Nine member venues have provided patron data on audience attendance across the city. This has been laboriously coded and the first user group meeting for the project is being held on 9 December. Here project participants will get the first glimpse of results along with information on the kind of reporting that will be available and how the data could be used in business and marketing planning.
The Arts: Promising Service
In launching 21st Century Service (see Training and Events) members have taken a significant first step in addressing service levels with the arts, city-wide. To see just how important this is for the customer, members can view the full report by logging on to the Professional Development section of the GGA Inspiration Station Resource Library.
Integrated Ticketing and Information Provision
The Mystery Shopping report revealed a growing demand for information and ticketing at the press of a button with Glasgow arts organisations required to take significant steps to improve access, acquire new audiences and grow the market place. Discussions have taken place with Bridget McConnell, Glasgow City Council, to highlight this demand and outline the possibility for joint working with Edinburgh City Council. There ECC, SAC and TAB have recently commissioned a feasibility study to look at the Edinburgh marketplace for integrated ticketing. While the technology for integrated ticketing is still to prove itself, there is real evidence of a growing consumer demand for web based initiatives, links across individual sites, joint listings, policies on e-commerce and improved box office systems and data management.
Back to top
Events - in Glasgow's Arts and Culture world
Gaelic audience development strategy launch
18 November saw a fantastic turnout from across the city and beyond for the launch of Glasgow’s first Gaelic Arts Strategy at the CCA. At its heart, ‘strategic and project initiatives over the next three years will meet gaps in current provision, creating pathways and partnerships which enable a visible and secure future for Gaelic cultural identity in the city’.
Not just performing arts - Realise/your right to art
REALISE is a long term campaign to place visual culture at the heart of people's lives, public policy and the political debate, creating society where everyone is empowered to interpret and make choices about the visual world. Its pledge is inspiring to everyone involved in the arts. To learn more visit www.righttoart.com and to sign up to the campaign E: signup@righttoart.com.
REALISE is led and co-ordinated by VAGA, the Visual Arts and Galleries Association.
Public Sector Broadcasting and Culture
Monday 12 December - Room 408, Gilmorehill Centre, University of Glasgow
For 2005-06, the Centre for Cultural Policy Research is holding a series of seminars that will take as their starting point the question 'What is creative about the creative industries?' They will explore the relationship between the artist, the cultural organisation, the creative community, government and commerce.
There is no charge for the seminar however places are limited and will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis. For more information, and to reserve your place, you can book online or contact Iseult Rea on 0141 330 2447.
Extraordinary Everyday
Thursday 15 December - Panel Discussion 7.00pm-8.00pm, CCA cinema Launch of publication and drinks - 8.00pm-9.00pm, CCA bookshop & café area
Socially engaged Arts practice has seen a period of rejuvenation and rapid growth in recent years. The panel will explore the relationship of artist and collaborator and look at the issues which emerge from working with different perspectives and experiences. Places are free but ticketed. Please RSVP to Vanessa Cameron on 0131 229 3555 or E: info@artlinkedinburgh.co.uk.
Back to top
On the Audience Front...
Classic FM silences critics
Julian Lloyd Webber highlights a new report commissioned by Arts Council England which shows that as many as 38% of the audience at concerts supported by Classic FM have never attended a classical concert before. This confounds the pessimists, who at the station's inception predicted that they would have no impact on audiences. Top British orchestras now vie with each other to become 'Classic FM partners', while the Gramophone Awards are now sponsored by Classic FM.
Daily Telegraph, p24,13 Oct 05
Nielson lifts lid on broadband usage
Internet specialist Nielson/NetRatings has revealed the scale of Britain's rapid broadband take up, with almost three quarters of users now access websites through high speed connections. This figure according to the online analyst represents a growth of 59% in broadband take up in just one year. In addition, Nielson/NetRatings reports broadband users to be spending twice as long on their computers and viewing 3.5 times as many web pages each month as narrowband users.
Media News, 17 Oct 2005, www.featherbrooksbank.co.uk
Consumers are downloading approximately 100,000 radio programmes a week from the BBC. The most popular choice is Radio 4’s In Our Time with 30,000 requests per week, New Media Age, 8 Sept 2005.
Some findings from the Mintel report on National Newspapers
The fact that the number of households has continued to rise steadily while newspaper sales have declined just as steadily suggests the notion that a 'household' is no longer as relevant as it once was. However the increasing number of adults aged 45+ in the population should at least mean a slower decline in sales than would have otherwise been the case, given they are most likely to read a newspaper. The most important change for the market comes from the widening role of technology in giving access to news and all manner of other information and entertainment.
Media News, 31 Oct 2005, www.featherbrooksbank.co.uk
Instant CD
New technology is now allowing orchestras to release CDs of a concert for sale to their audience as they leave the event minutes later. The Guerzenich Orchestra Koeln has already done so, selling 800 CDs at E10 each to audience members who queued up after the performance. The Association of British Orchestras has praised the endeavour and hopes to see it happening in the UK. Times, p27, 24 Oct 2005
Direct success
The success of Davey Anderson’s Snuff at the Edinburgh Fringe has further enhanced the reputation of the Arches Awards for stage directors. The latest winners are Alan McKendrick and Stuart Murdoch, both Scottish directors who have spent a lot of time working with other cultures and traditions.
The Herald, 25 Oct 2005
Themed art to suit your mood
Tate Britain with a nifty audience development idea: identifying mini-collections among its paintings to suit the mood of any visitor. These collections include I’m hungover, which includes soothing scenes by George Barret Senior: I’ve Just Split Up, including Millais’s Ophelia, and a First Date collection including an erupting Vesuvius. The service is also available through the website where the visitor can choose pictures and have a specially printed leaflet delivered to their friends.
Times, p5 14.09.05
Access all arias
Glyndebourne is about to tour with a new work aimed specifically at what it terms the 'Missing Audience' - the 18 to 30 age group who have never experienced opera. Tangier Tattoo is a noir thriller set in Morocco, by composer John Lunn and librettist Stephen Plaice. Glyndebourne has carried out a process of contacting members of the 'Missing Audience', including Office Angels temps, pottery factory workers and dockers, to find out what would get them through the door of an opera house. The artistic team has worked before on commissions for Glyndebourne's active education department, which is also involved in the Tangier Tattoo project. The FT in particular devotes a lot of space to a thorough examination of the process of development of the opera. Composer John Lunn is quoted as saying: 'There are three problems with the type of opera I'm involved with: reaching the 18 to 30 audience; knowing modern music critics will absolutely hate it; knowing that conventional opera audiences will call it the death of opera.'
Financial Times Weekend pp W1-W2, 8th Oct 2005 – Times2, p22 14th Oct 2005
A shocking approach to marketing opera
David Lister of the Independent takes up his colleague Philip Hensher's recent well-meaning diatribe on the current state of opera marketing. He castigates celeb intellectual interviewees for knowing nothing about opera and appearing to think it's OK, even cool, never to go to the opera. Then he suggests that the English National Opera should drop its tired 'sexy poster' campaigns (e.g., naked women on a poster for 'The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant', in which no naked ladies actually appear). He says that posters should 'tell the truth. Rigoletto will break your heart'.
Independent, p42 5th Nov 2005
Back to top
And Finally...
Cheesy grins required
The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra has been castigated on its own website by audience members who want them to smile when they take their bow. The players have been nicknamed 'the Glums' for their po-faced reception of applause and appearance of being bored. The orchestra has responded, saying that it is an issue which they wish to address and which will be discussed at the next Association Of British Orchestras' conference. Musicians have pointed out that they have little to smile about, being overworked and underpaid, and subjected to indifferent conductors and dull programmes. One also pointed out that smiling after a performance of Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony would be like a newsreader grinning while giving bad news. Another said that audiences don't understand the strain of concentration and emotion which can prevent a musician from being able to 'click into jollity'.
Times p19 (leader) & p29 9th Nov 2005
The Skating Gerbil Slot
Two new uses of the arts have been revealed by the papers. Guide dogs in Scotland are being played classical music to help them to concentrate relaxing them so that their ability to learn is uninhibited by stress.
Across the Pond, New York police are having their observational abilities honed by art study. This practise has also been used for medical students. It improves officers’ ability to assess situations in the blink of an eye – a valuable skill on the street of New York.
Times, p26, 2nd Sept 2005 & 4th Sept 2005
You heard it here first…
Moving on?
Help us keep our mailing list up to date and correct by letting us know if you are moving jobs (contact: info@gga4arts.co.uk), we hope to add a new section to Snippets called Movers and Shakers in 2006. Remember up-to-date jobs can be found on the GGA website - should you have any positions you wish featured on the website, please send details and we will be happy to post (contact: info@gga4arts.co.uk).
Book a Room
Should you need a meeting room don’t forget the GGA facilities. A wee walk through the German Christmas market on your way home could make it a real festive meeting of minds…
Inspiration
How about some art for Christmas? GGA has hooked up with the Graphic Art Collective to offer members a fantastic, one off 20% Christmas 2005 discount on their range of unique, limited edition prints and paintings from artists across the globe. Call Audrey at the Graphic Art Collective on M: 0791 991 7932 or E: info@graphicartcollective.co.uk to view the range on offer at GGA, 6 Dixon Street, Glasgow. To obtain your discount quote, GGA ‘OWN YOUR OWN ART OFFER’:1 or bring along this email. Offer ends 31 December 2005. www.graphicartcollective.co.uk
Back to top
Best wishes
Julie L Tait
Director
Glasgow Grows Audiences
Suite 1/1
6 Dixon Street
Glasgow
G1 4AX
T - 0141 248 6864
F - 0141 248 4090
E - julie@gga4arts.co.uk
W - www.gga4arts.co.uk
GGA - Promoting the Live Arts Experience
|
