1.Thanks to all of you who filled in the recent online Audience Data Collection survey. The survey was sent to Arts Council clients in receipt of annual funding. Almost 250 organisations responded to the survey and the results have given a snapshot of which organisations collect data about audiences and how. We will use the results to inform planning about future projects.
2. Arts Audiences and The Arts Council are hosting an afternoon workshop next Tuesday 24th August for those organisations who received grants to tour in 2010. The workshop is based around the “Guide to Marketing Your Production on Tour” on this site. Thanks are due to Jenny Traynor of Coisceim and others who will share their experience and expertise with others about to go out on the road.
3. Target Group Index. Release of information
We were hoping to release the second tranche of information drawn from TGI at the end of July, but this will now be the end of August. A few things have conspired to delay the release but it will definitely be there by the end of the month. Also the new full dataset based on the survey carried out in autumn 09/spring 10 will be available in September and a new report will compare the 08/09 results with the new. Thank you for your patience.
The first report from Arts Audience’s Build Your Audience scheme is complete and available for download. Entitled A Guide to Marketing Your Production on Tour, this highly informative, in-depth document has been produced by Coisceim Dance Theatre with Heather Maitland, and will be of interest to anyone involved in marketing and especially those thinking of touring a production around Ireland.
To download a PDF of this 24 page guide, click here: A Guide to Marketing your Production on Tour
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CoisCeim performance of “As You Are”
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About the scheme: Arts Audiences invited submissions from arts organisations for the Build Your Audience scheme in late 2009, for projects where the services of marketing consultant Heather Maitland would be of assistance to them in a particular audience development initiative. Three projects were selected to proceed on the basis that the results would be of wide interest in the arts. This report is the first of three to be published over the coming weeks.
Kevin Costner – he built it, and they actually did come
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Whoever said ‘if we build it, they will come‘, wasn’t a web designer.
He was, in fact, the ghost of a baseball player, speaking to a farmer from Iowa. However, ghostly apparitions aside, as anyone who has built a website (started a facebook page/ Twitter account/ Ning community, etc etc) will know, putting something up online is only half the battle, it takes work to get the word out, and to get traffic in.
So while the arts in Ireland is seeing an increasing amount of high quality work occurring online, these endeavours aren’t always getting the attention they deserve. We’re looking to provide a platform to showcase new work in this area, and with any luck to help bring this work to a wider arts public, nationally and internationally.
So, if you’re using the internet to present work in a new way, if you’re launching a dynamic new website, if you’ve a new and imaginative ways of engaging with new audiences online, drop an email to james.kelly(at)artsaudiences.ie. Looking forward to hearing from you!
Hotel Modern’s homepage
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It’s said that the eyes are the window to the soul. Perhaps by extension, a well made website is a window to the soul of an organisation.
If this is the case, well Hotel Modern is a pretty far out place. Their website (well worth a little visit) gives the visitor a strong flavour of the creativity at the heart of the organisation.
Not being familiar with their work, my first visit to this website made me realise I wished I’d attended their show in last year’s Dublin Theatre Festival – it’s pretty rare for me that a website would have this effect.
Below, a still from Kamp, which was performed in the Samuel Beckett last year, as part of this festival.
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(thanks to Caroline Williams of Dublin Dance Festival / Dublin Theatre Festival for passing on the link).
Sinead Mac Manus, originally from Dublin, is a London based creative business consultant and trainer.
A regular contributor to the London Theatre Blog, she’s worked in management in a number of art organisations, including Frantic Assembly.
Of interest to Arts Audiences readers will be posts she has written outlining how to get going with a wordpress website. It’s actually very easy, and in these posts, she lays it all out very clearly;
How to start a wordpress site – part 1
How to start a wordpress site – part 2
In another post, Sinead gives a simple introductory explanation of how Theatre companies can use social media.
If people want to be kept up to date with the rest of the series – blogging is next – they can subscribe by RSS and email.
Finally worth mentioning that she has also set up a website called startatheatrecompany.com which provide a series of training modules for those looking to set up a theatre company, giving practical advice on business plans, budgeting, strategy as well as on audience development, marketing, and all that jazz!
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