AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT
The term ‘audience development’ appeared in cultural policy debates in the 1990s, originally in the UK. Since then, it has become a dominant way of describing attempts by cultural institutions, organisations, and policymakers to make arts, culture, and heritage accessible to the widest range of citizens across Europe. Audience development describes activities undertaken to attract, support, and engage audiences within the work of cultural organisations and make their programmes and activities accessible and desirable. It is entwined with a whole range of other practices within the field of culture, like marketing, social inclusion, cultural mediation, intercultural dialogue, and participatory arts. Since it is used widely and in many different cultural settings, the meaning and practice of audience development can differ widely. Nevertheless, it is hard to find a policymaking body in Europe today that is not actively promoting and supporting audience development.
As a complex undertaking, audience development can include various aspects of communication, research, programming, mediation, education, customer relations, and similar. Various audience development approaches prioritise different methods and activities. Those depend on the understanding of audiences and their behaviour (e.g., active or passive); of their relation to content or artwork (e.g., spectating or contribution); or of the needs of organisation (e.g., making profit, education, or public outreach).
In many instances of audience development interventions, it is seen as an attempt to promote marketing logic and tools in the cultural field. It includes methods of customer relationship management, ticket sales promotion, SWOT and other market-oriented analyses, merchandising, and using digital outreach tools. However, this approach is not favoured by all and has been criticised. In the case of public arts and cultural institutions, audience development seeks ways to reach much broader audiences than those that would be defined as ‘demand’ (i.e., those who have a desire and means to purchase). In these cases, approaches often involve presenting in open and accessible public spaces (streets, parks, markets, squares, and public transport); extending opening hours (as in the case of Museum Nights); or collaborating with other institutions whose reach is wider than that of cultural institutions, e.g., schools, factories, TV, and radio. Finally, for many cultural professionals, audience development is about removing barriers to public cultural participation for marginalized or special interest groups. Those could be rural or suburban audiences, people with disabilities, or the poor. In these cases, audience development would accordingly entail providing easier transport to city centres, audio guides, tactile exhibitions or labels, discounts or free admissions, and the like.
Notwithstanding differences in approaches to audience development, there is widespread agreement that widening access and engagement with arts and culture require the active role of cultural organisations and institutions in changing their habitual ways of working. That is why audience development is a common topic in guidebooks, trainings and seminars, professional conferences, and grant schemes aimed at cultural professionals and supported by policymakers. (GT, VK)
See also: Inclusion; Access to culture; Diversity of audiences