The Audience Agency

Had a fabulous day attending TPC - Ticketing Professionals Ltd / Inc 2024 1/2 yesterday on behalf of The Audience Agency. It was a great opportunity to catch up with our lovely ticketing community. Thanks to Emily Childs and Chris Crossley from Line-Up for hosting an insightful afternoon. Particular thanks also to Hatti Simpson and Louise Parry for the (informative) comic interlude!

📅 Join us and the UK National Commission for UNESCO as we launch a new Audience Development & Mapping Toolkit. An industry first, the toolkit has been co-developed with the UK’s network of UNESCO-designated sites, which include Biosphere Reserves, Creative Cities, Global Geoparks and World Heritage Sites. At this free online event, we'll introduce the new toolkit, share some case studies for its use, and provide an opportunity for questions and discussion. Tue 29 October, 1.30pm-2.30pm Find out more and book your place: https://lnkd.in/eD4MyQWJ

❓❓ Who lives in your organisation’s catchment area? Who could your potential audiences be? 🗺️ Our free, interactive Audience Spectrum map is a great starting point to help answer these questions. 🗺️ Enter your postcode, then zoom in and discover the proportion of each Audience Spectrum segment living there. You’ll also find links to detailed profiles on each segment to help begin thinking about engagement tactics you could try. It’s easily one of our most popular and most-requested tools – take a look now... (warning, it can be addictive 😉) https://lnkd.in/ewRuRmcp

☕Time for a TEA Break! At next week's free event, we'll be talking about what's driving the changing audience engagement we're seeing in the arts and culture sector. How much is covid, and the cost of living crisis still affecting people’s decision to engage? Grab a brew, and join us as we unpick our latest research. Book your free place: https://lnkd.in/ejBvsA5N

As chief technology officer for The Audience Agency, Stephen M. is often asked questions about technology and AI. Here are the most common AI ones – and his responses to them.

💡 Our CEO Anne Torreggiani says: "Working in partnership, as often, with Centre for Cultural Value and MyCake Ltd , and with funding from the ESRC: Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC part of UK Research and Innovation), we’ll be exploring how knitting together multiple datasets can help us to demonstrate and develop the socio-economic impact of the UK’s arts, culture and heritage sectors in new and compelling ways in this exciting new project to develop a blueprint for a national cultural data observatory. It’s a project we’ve been thinking about for years. Every time we come across an amazing initiative which deserves to be celebrated and scaled. We think about it whenever when we look at the unequal distribution of resources and audiences. And when we are trying to make the case for a new cultural centre, boost funds for an existing company, or demonstrate the incredible health or education benefits an organisation is making in its community. As project leads Ben Walmsley at University of Leeds and Patrick Towell for The Audience Agency say in their blog… "the problem of fragmented and hard-to-compare data matters to us all … it makes it harder to justify and evidence the social and economic impact of cultural activities in a compelling way. This limits investment, hampers innovative policymaking and inhibits collaboration between public and private sectors. It also leaves the ACH sectors vulnerable to public funding cuts." It isn’t just about getting funding or political or policy attention. It’s about ensuring that everyone – regardless of where they live – has access to cultural experiences and creative opportunities. It’s also about mapping what the cultural and creative sector is doing, and the raw materials that make it tick – the amazing people, key facilities, vital knowledge, creative works - plays, books, designs, artworks and more. Everyone who helps to make the sector thrive needs the same good quality intel – to make the best decisions for the sector and for the benefit of the public. Pulling together and joining up research from the diverse sources that hold this data is a complex job. We’ve been developing small-scale versions and trialling prototypes for a while, but now we have the chance to scope something of real scale and potential, in the form of a central, national data exchange or observatory." https://lnkd.in/efN_iN-B Read more in the announcement post and blog linked below ⤵️⤵️

🎟️ Our agents Lucy Crowe and Chris France had a great time at the Ticketsolve RECHARGE 2024 event yesterday.   🙏 Thanks to the whole Ticketsolve team, who hosted a wonderful day. It was fascinating to learn about the innovative new features being developed for the platform and lovely to speak to so many Ticketsolve users, hearing about how they were approaching audience development. 💡 There were some excellent speakers and it was interesting when asked: what three words could change the industry, people responded with: ➡️ Funding, skills, tech ➡️ Better audience understanding ➡️ Support   📊 Our insights are available to all cultural organisations, and we can help you to understand your audiences and make more use of your data. All UK Ticketsolve users have access to an Audience Answers Ticketing Snapshot dashboard free of charge, giving access Audience Spectrum and other data insights. This includes full technical onboarding and support for new users. Get in touch if you have any questions.

We loved working with the Cheshire East Council team on this funding application to Arts Council England, supporting on consultation with key stakeholders and the community, and through an asset audit and market analysis. We can't wait to visit the new creative hub in Crewe when it opens! Get in touch if you need additional evidence to support your funding applications: workwithus@theaudienceagency.org

📅 Who's going to Ticketsolve's RECHARGE 2024 event this week? Looks like a great day's in store for everyone heading to London on Thursday! Our colleagues Lucy Crowe and Chris France will both be there, and are looking forward to catching up with friends and partners, old and new. So if you're a Ticketsolve user and want to make the most of your audience data (whether you're an expert or total beginner), do have a chat with them about what's available to you through Audience Answers. https://lnkd.in/eQbyDXdX #RECHARGE2024 Leicester Square Theatre #AudienceAnswers

There were *so* many interesting conversations at this event - a real pleasure to be there (great to see the Civic’s Eldon St entrance open too). I’m looking forward to the next one in Rotherham on 14th Nov already…