Audiences Wales awarded £20k to profile theatregoers

Published Tuesday 3 June 2008 at 14:05 by Lalayn Baluch

Marketing and development agency Audiences Wales has received a £20,000 grant from Arts Council Wales to carry out a research project looking at the behaviour of theatregoers in the country.

The investigation, to be carried out in conjunction with theatre development agency Creu Cymru, will aim to create profiles for current audiences in order to help venues find ways to attract new customers, and “bolster” the number of people attending productions.

According to Audiences Wales chief executive Nick Beasley, the organisation decided to approach ACW about the research after the council published a draft of its new arts strategy - which recognises the difficulties that venues face in nurturing new audiences.

He explained that due to the arts council’s large investment in the new English Language National Theatre for Wales, the research would focus on English speaking productions.

He told The Stage: “The ambition is to really understand the relationship between programming, marketing and audiences - to raise that debate between them and put audiences at the centre of that debate.

“Research exists elsewhere in the UK that has similar elements to what we are doing, but it certainly has not existed in Wales before.”

The agency will carry out interviews with audiences, creators of English language productions, venue managers and ACW, as well as using its existing research on theatre box office trends.

The investigation will be published in February 2009 and will detail case studies, methods of best practice, initiatives and propose ideas for the future.

ACW has just completed a public consultation on the first draft of its arts strategy and the final report is expected later this summer.